The impact of forecasting accuracy on the economic performance of flexibility provision

Aggregation by Virtual Power Plants (VPP) to provide flexibility to distribution and transmission networks is seen as an important element in the transition to Net-zero. This paper presents work carried out in the SIES 2022 ERA-Net project, which is investigating in detail the possible provision of flexibility by different technologies but thorough a lens of different business models. Forecasting is an important element of a VPP's functionality and to its commercial success. Forecasting errors are reviewed using real project data and used to simulate an optimisation of project assets using both actual and forecast data, allowing a quantification of the effects of forecasting errors on VPP performance.