Recently, NaaS (NASDAQ: NAAS) Virtual Power Plant (VPP) has passed the capacity test of Shenzhen VPP management platform, China's first grid-ground integrated VPP operation management platform, thus was accredited as a Shenzhen VPP load aggregator. With access to over 1.5 million KW and projected maximum adjustable load capacity of over 300,000 KW in real time, Shenzhen VPP management platform tops all VPP platforms nationwide in terms of density of data acquisition, variety of access load, amount of direct control resources and diversity of application scenarios.

NaaS Virtual Power Plant (VPP)

As one of the first VPP aggregators with access to Shenzhen VPP management platform, NaaS VPP has realized independent coordination and optimization of control in the test. The AI algorithm-based product resets control command and gives the command at the beginning of interaction with grid. During load regulation, it works out and gives out a minute-level policy to the equipment under regulation depending on real-time station load, so as to bring fully intelligent regulation into reality. During demand response, NaaS VPP, with average response capacity of 4.3MW and response ratio of 109%, helps grid alleviate load peak pressure and secures reliability and stability of power consumption.

The qualification as a Shenzhen VPP load aggregator verifies NaaS' capabilities of building and running a regional virtual power plant and inspires the company to contribute to integrated PV-storage-charging development.

Since earlier this year, solid progress has been made in VPP building in Guangdong Province, with pilot projects carried out in Guangzhou, Shenzhen and elsewhere in the province. In June, Guangdong Provincial Development and Reform Commission and Energy Bureau of Guangdong Province proposed in the Measures for Promoting Development of New Energy Storage Power Stations in Guangdong Province to push forward VPP building and develop pilot VPP projects in Guangzhou, Shenzhen and elsewhere in the province. Under masterplan on VPP access, market transaction and cooperative control, Guangdong is intended to foster GW-class VPP response capacity step by step.

It is also specified in the Shenzhen Working Program for Implementation of Virtual Power Plant (2022-2025) issued by the Development and Reform Commission of Shenzhen Municipality that by 2025, Shenzhen will set in place a 1-million-kW-level virtual power plant with annual maximum load of 5% or so under stable regulation, further save energy and bring down carbon emissions, and establish a new power system with source-grid-load-storage synergy.

This June, NaaS launched the Virtual Power Plant (VPP), which takes the charging station as the major scenario and efficiently combines scattered load resources such as electric vehicles (EVs), charging piles, energy storage facilities and distributed PV through the cloud to create a controllable management unit. With flexible PV-storage-charging management, intelligent allocation and energy control, it engages in transactions in power market, responds to the allocation demand of power grid and helps charging stations to reduce energy consumption costs.

NaaS VPP at the International Digital Energy Expo 2023

For charging stations, NaaS adopts unified management and flexible allocation for power load aggregated. Apart from real-time monitoring of load change followed by relevant adjustments in time and prediction of power load. The company also makes full use of big data in the cloud platform to dynamically adjust the charging time and power according to the power grid allocation, optimize the power grid load and improve the economic benefits. For users, NaaS can dispatch EV owners and guide them to charge in an orderly manner through electricity price incentives. It participates in the power grid allocation to shift the load and give full play to peak load shifting; for power grid, NaaS enhances V2G to achieve the supply-demand balance and relieve the pressure on the power grid.

As predicted by NewLink Research Institute, from 2022 to 2030, the car parc of new energy vehicles (NEVs) in China will increase from 13.1 million to 145 million, and the public charging volume is expected to increase from 13.7 billion kWh to 337.8 billion kWh. EVs, charging piles, distributed PV, energy storage facilities and other load resources will pose challenges to the power grid.

Virtual power plant will strengthen the synergy between power demand side and supply side and help to improve the stability and operation efficiency of the power system. At the same time, the virtual power plant will play an important role in reducing the operation costs of power grid, stabilizing the peak-valley difference of power grid, achieving refined energy management, promoting the consumption of new energy and enabling carbon neutrality. CITIC Securities predicts that the overall market share of virtual power plants is expected to reach RMB 72.3 billion by 2025 and RMB 196.1 billion by 2030.

As China's first public EV charging stock, NaaS provides industry solutions for all parties in the NEV charging industrial chain, including planning and design, station planning, EPC engineering, connectivity, operation & maintenance, station management, non-charging services, user-side energy storage, PV, and virtual power plants. As of March 31, 2023 NaaS has connected 55,000 charging stations and 575,000 chargers. In 2023Q1, NaaS' charging volume reached 1.023 billion kWh, representing 21% of the national total.