This paper presents an optimal bidding strategy for a technical and commercial virtual power plant (VPP) in medium-term time horizon. A VPP includes various distributed energy resources (DERs) that can participate in the Pool and Futures markets. Although medium/long-term scheduling provides the opportunity to participate in the futures market, it also raises the possibility of unit failure. In this regard, the impact of distributed generation (DG) units’ failure, as an important challenge in VPP, is incorporated in the proposed model. The model is formulated as a risk-constrained two-stage stochastic problem. The VPP signs futures market contracts in the first stage, and in the second stage, it participates in the day-ahead (DA) market and manages its DERs. Long short-term memory neural network and scenario generation and reduction methods are used to capture the uncertainty parameters of electrical load, DA market prices, wind speed, and solar radiation in the proposed model. The performance of proposed model is investigated in different cases. The obtained results show that the VPP can compensate the losses caused by the DG units’ failure through taking advantage of the arbitrage opportunity.@en

A virtual power plant (VPP) is a solution that brings distributed generation (DG) resources together and allows them to be optimally utilized to meet load demands in the presence of technical and pollution constraints. Electricity, heat, and natural gas are interdependent at the levels of generation, transmission, and consumption, and the interactions of these energy sources need to be considered. This paper presents an optimal model for daily operation of a multi-energy virtual power plant (MEVPP), including electric, thermal, and natural gas sectors. MEVPP includes small-scale gas-fired and non-gas-fired DGs, combined heat and power (CHP), power to gas (P2G), boilers, electrical storage, electric vehicles (EV), and thermal storage. Renewable energy resources (RES), including wind turbines (WT), photovoltaic (PV), and PV-thermal (PVT), also supply P2G technology. Smart grid technologies such as price-based demand response (PBDR) and incentive-based demand response (IBDR) are employed for electric loads. The proposed MEVPP model is eligible to participate in day-ahead electricity, natural gas, heat markets, and electrical spinning reserve market. The scheduling model is multi-objective to maximize MEVPP profit and minimize carbon dioxide emissions. The Epsilon constraint method is utilized to solve the problem, and the best Pareto point is chosen using the fuzzy satisfying approach.@en