Spark Your Imagination: Eneco's Virtual Power Plant • Wesley Coetzee & Sebastian Du Rand • GOTO 2024

Eneco’s Virtual Power Plant (VPP) integrates and manages multiple electricity assets (solar panels, wind parks, electric vehicles, greenhouses) to help balance the power grid

Implementation uses microservices architecture, with key components:

• VPP Core for asset management and dispatch
• Aggregation Layer for pooling assets
• Planning Domain for schedules/forecasting
• Behind-the-meter optimization for household level control

Key technical solutions:

• Outbox pattern for data consistency
• Leader election pattern to prevent duplicate processing
• Asset identifier as Kafka partition key
• Caching of static asset data to reduce I/O
• Azure Data Explorer (ADX) for time series data

Architecture choices prioritize:

• Low-code approach for faster development
• Fit-for-purpose technologies
• Scalability for handling 200,000+ customers
• Cost optimization
• Reliability due to grid-critical nature

System capabilities:

• Smart scheduling of asset charging/usage
• Real-time telemetry processing
• Weather forecast integration
• Multiple solver implementations for optimization
• Market participation management
• Customer energy cost savings

Challenges addressed:

• Data consistency across services
• High volume telemetry processing
• Duplicate message handling
• Long-running workflow management
• Asset data duplication