Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) has enhanced integration between different energy resources in its smart grid through its Virtual Power Plant (VPP), the first of its kind in the region.

The first phase has aggregated the Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) operated by DEWA’s R&D Centre, and managed them as a single mixed portfolio of generation and load connected to the grid.

The VPP is an advanced technology based on aggregation, orchestration, Artificial Intelligence (AI) based forecasting, and optimisation to integrate various types of DERs to support DEWA’s smart grid.

The VPP is a digital platform that establishes connectivity to many distributed, small and medium scale DER units such as solar photovoltaic, battery storage, electric vehicle charging stations, and other flexible loads.

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The aim is to enable the participation of these DERs to support the network operation and maximise their value to the grid operator and end customer by providing grid services such as peak shaving, frequency regulation or energy balancing.

The successful completion of the first phase of the VPP project resulted from a fruitful research collaboration between DEWA’s R&D Centre at the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park and Generac Grid Services (GSS).

The project’s next phase is to build a more comprehensive techno-economic feasibility study for the wide deployment of the VPP on DEWA’s grid, define the most desirable use cases for DEWA’s distribution and transmission networks, and implement them on a larger scale.

HE Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD & CEO of DEWA, said that the VPP increases renewable energy integration capabilities.

"This supports DEWA’s efforts to achieve the Dubai Clean Energy Strategy 2050 and the Dubai Net Zero Emissions Strategy 2050 to provide 100% of the energy production capacity from clean energy sources by 2050," Al Tayer said.

The total flexibility provided by the VPP in this pilot project is approximately 3.3 MW. DEWA’s next step is to identify and aggregate similar sites to provide additional flexibility to operate DEWA’s grid more efficiently and reliably.

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