China News Service, Hangzhou, October 9 (Bao Mengni, Zhang Yue) According to State Grid Zhejiang Electric Power’s news on October 9, during the National Day holiday, the company organized a virtual power plant market-oriented response, attracting the participation of 50 virtual power plant operators and 2,542 aggregate users. The maximum response load was 3.5952 million kilowatts, setting a new domestic virtual power plant response scale record. Among them, 1,359 households participated in user-side energy storage, with a maximum response of 1.0641 million kilowatts. The scale of energy storage response simultaneously hit a new domestic high.
At 9:00 on October 1, a number of electric heavy trucks drove into the Jinhua Shoun Green Power Logistics Service Charging Station one after another to participate in the virtual power plant market-oriented response to the valley filling. Photo by Mei Jianwei
During the National Day holiday, most industrial and commercial enterprises in Zhejiang entered vacation mode, and the electricity load of the whole society dropped significantly compared with working days; however, photovoltaic power stations across the province did not "take vacation". Photovoltaic power generation was released intensively at noon, and the pressure for new energy consumption increased sharply. The valley-filling response is to guide adjustable loads to use more electricity during the peak hours of photovoltaic output at noon and consume excess green electricity locally.
This response sets a new record, thanks to the "Implementation Rules for the Marketization Response of New Entities in the Electric Power Sector in Zhejiang Province (Trial Version 2.0)" and the "Implementation Rules for the Operation and Management of Virtual Power Plants in Zhejiang Province (Trial Version)" recently issued by Zhejiang. According to the new regulations, user-side energy storage can participate in the response as an independent unit, and the energy storage contribution is separately accounted for and paid separately, and will no longer be offset by the load reduction after the enterprise reduces production.
The supporting market mechanisms will be opened simultaneously. In September this year, the Zhejiang Provincial Development and Reform Commission and the Provincial Energy Bureau issued a notice clarifying that user-side energy storage that participates in the valley-filling response through the aggregation of virtual power plants can be discharged to the grid during the peak electricity consumption period from 19:00 to 23:00 the day before the response day, and the grid-connected electricity is settled according to the power grid agency industrial and commercial electricity purchase price of the same voltage level in the month. The energy storage vacates capacity during the evening peak to obtain revenue, and continues to charge and fill the valley at noon the next day, forming a daily rolling cycle of "valley charging and peak discharge".
“In the past, when enterprises cut production and reduced electricity consumption, it was difficult for the power grid to distinguish whether it was production adjustment or energy storage adjustment, and the value of energy storage was easily covered up.” A person in charge of State Grid Zhejiang Electric Power said that now, the contribution of energy storage in “charging at noon to fill valleys and discharging at night to increase capacity” can be accurately measured, and the motivation for corporate participation has been significantly enhanced.
On October 1, the virtual power plant issued unified dispatching instructions, and the adjustable loads distributed throughout Zhejiang responded synchronously. In Ningbo Yinzhou, Sun and Moon Heavy Industries Co., Ltd. connected 10,000 kilowatts of energy storage to the virtual power plant, with a cumulative response of 20,000 kilowatt hours for valley filling; in Jiaxing Haining, JinkoSolar (Haining) Co., Ltd. invested 5,000 kilowatts of energy storage to participate in valley filling. Heavy-duty truck charging stations in Ningbo, Lishui, Jinhua and other places are also connected to the virtual power plant resource pool. They use electricity price signals and response incentive mechanisms to guide freight vehicles to adjust their charging time to 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. when the grid load is low, attracting freight fleets to orderly replenish energy during off-peak hours, and turn the charging network in the transportation field into a "reservoir" for grid regulation.
Up to now, Zhejiang Province has connected to 65 virtual power plant operators, aggregated 9,852 secondary users, with a total adjustable capacity of over 3.6 million kilowatts, and the adjustment capacity is equivalent to a large thermal power plant. The application scenarios have expanded from the initial single peak shaving to two-way adjustment of peak shaving and valley filling; the types of aggregate resources have extended from adjustable industrial loads to user-side energy storage, new energy vehicle charging networks, commercial buildings, data centers and other diverse scenarios.
