Optimal economic dispatch of a virtual power plant based on gated recurrent unit proximal policy optimization

The intermittent renewable energy in a virtual power plant (VPP) brings generation uncertainties, which prevents the VPP from providing a reliable and user-friendly power supply. To address this issue, this paper proposes a gated recurrent unit proximal policy optimization (GRUPPO)-based optimal VPP economic dispatch method. First, electrical generation, storage, and consumption are established to form a VPP framework by considering the accessibility of VPP state information. The optimal VPP economic dispatch can then be expressed as a partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP) problem. A novel deep reinforcement learning method called GRUPPO is further developed based on VPP time series characteristics. Finally, case studies are conducted over a 24-h period based on the actual historical data. The test results illustrate that the proposed economic dispatch can achieve a maximum operation cost reduction of 6.5% and effectively smooth the supply–demand uncertainties.