Distributed optimization of virtual storage plant aggregating large-scale storage for grid reserve provision: Experimental validations

This paper investigates the participation in grid services of large-scale storage devices aggregated as a virtual storage plant (VSP). A distributed optimization framework is developed to enable highly autonomous operation of the VSP for simultaneous provisions of the reserve service and voltage regulation of the local distribution network. A hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testbed with real storage assets and realistic communication environment is established based on a transnational cooperation across multiple laboratories. Implementation details are provided with an emphasis on the forced-synchronized communication. The experimental results demonstrate the benefits and limitations of such distributed coordination for geographically dispersed storage devices over the cyber–physical networks, where the collected data is used to provide domain knowledge to improve the control design. This obtains important insights on the implementations of similar schemes in future power networks.