Virtual Storage Plant outcomes
The Virtual Storage Plant (VSP) of CROSSBOW project provides a platform promoting the usage of a large number of distributed storage technologies, which can be regarded as a buck energy storage system to be dispatched by the transmission system operators (TSO). The algorithms and methodologies, which enables VSP to provide ancillary services to the power system, are being demonstrated in the Smart Grid Laboratory (SGLab) of the University of Zagreb with a closed collaboration with the University of Manchester and other partners in the project consortium.
During the past several weeks, CROSSBOW team has been establishing distributed communication among the storage assets in the lab and implementing the preliminary version of the consensus algorithm, which drives the power outputs of storage units to the same values. This demonstration verifies the effectiveness of basic distributed control functions and lays the foundations of power dispatch among a distributed communication network. The operation of the storage group, as a VSP, will be determined by the optimization method deployed in the VSP aggregator, which will be the main focus in the next step of the demonstration.
The figures show the layout of the SGLab at the University of Zagreb (left) and the response of the four storage controllers over a distributed communication network (right)