Device Access Optimization for Virtual Power Plants in Heterogeneous Networks

In virtual power plants (VPPs), distributed devices (such as residential appliances, energy storage, and electric vehicles) communicate with control centers via wireless access points (APs). Nevertheless, with a massive number of devices connected to APs, VPPs would be adversely affected by packet loss and consequently suffer from revenue reduction. Therefore, devices’ access connections need to be delicately designated to mitigate these negative impacts. This paper studies the device access optimization problem from the perspective of VPP operations. An optimization model to minimize the revenue reduction induced by packet loss is first formulated to designate APs for devices in heterogeneous communication networks. The significance of various device data is determined by revenue reduction as a result of packet loss. Additionally, the heterogeneous access network model is established to characterize different types of APs. To make the model implementable, this paper further proposes a layered decomposition solution algorithm, which decomposes optimization tasks into small-scale sub-problems and successively assigns them to different layers of APs. Sub-problems are further decomposed for APs to greedily cut revenue reduction by evaluating devices’ marginal contributions to revenue reduction. Numerical case studies are also conducted to verify the benefits of device access optimization.