Journal Article

Intelligent Decision-Making for Multi-Scenario Resources in Virtual Power Plants Based on Improved Ant Colony Algorithm-Simulated Annealing Algorithm

Du, Minghao, Wang, Donglai, Li, Chengze, Sun, Yumiao, Hou, Xinming, Gao, Shuo

2025

Overview

Virtual power plants (VPPs) integrate distributed energy sources and demand-side resources, but their efficient intelligent resource decision-making faces challenges such as high-dimensional constraints, output volatility of renewable energy, and insufficient adaptability of traditional optimization algorithms. To address these issues, an innovative intelligent decision-making framework based on the Ant Colony Algorithm–Simulated Annealing (ACO-SA) is first proposed in this paper, aiming to realize intelligent collaborative decision-making for the economy and operational stability of VPP in complex scenarios. This framework combines the global path-searching capability of the Ant Colony Algorithm (ACO) with the probabilistic jumping characteristic of the Simulated Annealing Algorithm (SA) and designs a dynamic parameter collaborative adjustment mechanism, which effectively overcomes the defects of traditional algorithms such as slow convergence and easy trapping in local optimal solutions. Secondly, a resource intelligent decision-making cost model under the VPP framework is constructed. To verify algorithm performance, comparative experiments covering multiple scenarios (agricultural parks, industrial parks, and industrial parks with energy storage equipment) are designed and conducted. Finally, the simulation results show that compared with ACO, SA, Genetic Algorithm (GA), and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), ACO-SA exhibits significant advantages in terms of scheduling cost and convergence speed; the average scheduling cost of ACO-SA is 2.31%, 0.23%, 3.57%, and 1.97% lower than that of GA, PSO, ACO, and SA, respectively, and it can maintain excellent stability even in high-dimensional constraint scenarios with energy storage systems.

• Publisher: MDPI AG
• Subject: Algorithms / Alternative energy sources / Analysis / Artificial intelligence / Collaboration / Decision making / Design / Efficiency / Electric power-plants / Energy management systems / Energy resources / Engineering / Genetic algorithms / Mathematical optimization / Methods / Optimization algorithms / Pheromones / Power plants / Renewable resources / Scheduling / Simulated annealing (Mathematics) / Technology application / Temperature