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The VPP is an advanced technology based on aggregation, orchestration, Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based forecasting, and optimisation to integrate diverse DERs and support DEWA’s smart grid.
According to DEWA, the digital platform established connectivity to many distributed small and medium scale Distributed Energy Resource (DER) units such as solar photovoltaic, battery storage, electric vehicle charging stations and other flexible loads.
“Through its VPP, DEWA has integrated the following DERs: electric vehicles with a total consumption of 132kW; battery energy storage sodium sulfur (NaS) and lithium oron Li+ of a total capacity of 2.4MW, 8MWh; chiller system at the R&D Centre representing flexible loads of total power consumption of 390kW; outdoor testing facility at R&D Centre with 12kW PV inverter; residential PV inverters of 9kW; a smart grid station with PV solar inverter of 200kW; battery energy storage of 120kW; and EV charging stations with 44kW,” stated Waleed Bin Salman, executive vice president of business development and excellence at DEWA.
The first phase of the VPP aggregated the DERs operated by DEWA’s R&D Centre and managed them as a single mixed portfolio of generation and load connected to the grid.
Successful completion of the first phase of the VPP project resulted from a research collaboration between DEWA’s R&D Centre at the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park and Generac Grid Services (GSS).
The project’s next phase is to build a more comprehensive techno-economic feasibility study for the wide deployment of the VPP on DEWA’s grid, define the most desirable use cases for DEWA’s distribution and transmission networks and implement them on a larger scale.
The aim is to enable the participation of these DERs to support the network operation and maximise their value to the grid operator and end customer by providing grid services such as peak shaving, frequency regulation or energy balancing.
The total flexibility provided by the VPP in this pilot project is approximately 3.3MW.
DEWA’s next step is to identify and aggregate similar sites to provide additional flexibility to operate DEWA’s grid more efficiently and reliably.
