Development and application of KPIs for the evaluation of the control reserve supply by a cross-border renewable virtual power plant

In an increasingly decentralised energy system with a rising share of fluctuating renewable energy sources, such as wind energy and photovoltaics (PV), the importance of virtual power plants (VPP) for the provision of ancillary services is growing. Transmission system operators (TSOs) impose stringent requirements on the reliability and accurate controllability of power plants that are susceptible to qualify for control reserve provision. It needs to be discussed whether these requirements have to evolve to enable the participation of renewables in control reserve markets. As part of the REstable research project, an innovative ICT infrastructure was set up for linking German and French wind and PV farms in a transnational VPP. Key performance indicators (KPIs) derived from technical requirements of the German TSOs are proposed and applied to quantify the quality of control reserve provision by the VPP in physical field tests.