On February 6, 2024, the Release Conference on China’s First City-level Digital Virtual Power Plant was held in Dongshan Guesthouse in Yantai, marking the official release of the first city-level digital virtual power plant in China which was put into operation on November 22, 2023.

▲Launch and Operation Ceremony of Yantai Digital Virtual Power Plant

Yantai Digital Virtual Power Plant is composed of three sections: Intelligent Management and Control Platform, 500,000 kW Adjustable Load Resource Pool and Operation Center. Following the completion of the Operation Center and the online operation of Intelligent Management and Control Platform online in August 2023, Dongfang Electronics Corporation (“DFE”) has provided exploration and prospection services for more than 170 resource users and built a 242,000 kW adjustable load resource pool, thus achieving the interconnection with the State Grid Yantai Electric Power Co., Ltd. and the State Grid Shandong Electric Power Co., Ltd.

The inauguration of the Operation Center of Yantai Digital Virtual Power Plant on the same day indicated that it will continue to boost the access and connection of adjustable load resources within the city with all-round efforts on the investigation and collaboration of various types of adjustable load resources and step up the commercial operation of Yantai Digital Virtual Power Plant at scale in line with the system reform of the power market.

▲Inauguration Ceremony of the Operation Center of Yantai Digital Virtual Power Plant

▲Signing Ceremony for Entities Settling Yantai Digital Virtual Power Plant

At the conference, DFE concluded relevant agreements and contracts with 18 partners towards the common goal to develop a new energy management system of cleanness, safety, efficiency, and low carbon.

Thanks to the continuous advancement of the “dual carbon” goal, the new power system led by new energy is experiencing rapid growth, along with the rising proportion of clean energy in power generation, which poses challenges to the stability of the power grid given the high dependency on natural conditions for new energy. Given increasing randomness in power generation and power demands, the power grid faces massive uncertainties in operation, for which the virtual power plant successfully balances the grid and users to guarantee the safe and stable operation of the smart grid, contributing to great economic and social benefits.

Yantai features superior endowment of new energy as a traditional industrial powerhouse with GDP exceeding RMB 1 trillion and fast-growing demands for energy. Yantai Digital Virtual Power Plant is designed to enhance the resilience of energy security of Yantai for the building of a pilot area of green, low-carbon and high-quality development and an intelligent low-carbon city in Shandong.

As the first city-level digital virtual power plant in China, it was successfully listed as the pilot demonstration project for the construction and operation of virtual power plants of the State Grid in September 2023 and then selected in “Top 100” Source-Network-Load-Storage Demonstration Projects of the State Grid in October 2023. On December 9, 2023, DFE’s Intelligent Management and Control Platform of Virtual Power Plant successfully passed the scientific and technological appraisal by the panel led by academicians as organized by the Chinese Society for Electrical Engineering, stating a world-leading technology on the whole. The conference was organized by the Yantai Municipal People’s Government and co-organized by Yantai Development and Reform Commission, Yantai Municipal Clean Energy Industry Chain Office, State Grid Yantai Electric Power Co., Ltd. And DFE.