The changes in energy policy pose new challenges to the power grid. Thermal power stations, windmills, photovoltaic plants as well as energy accumulators shall all be fed into the power supply system without causing any fluctuations. This is ensured by the virtual power plant: With the help of an intelligent energy management system, energy carriers are interconnected with each other, and in case of fluctuations of a single energy carrier, other sources of energy are able to compensate the instabilities.

In order for the synchronization of different components within the virtual power plant to work, a uniform interface for communication and controlling is necessary. With this central command control of a virtual power plant, energy carriers are integrated into the power plant, navigated, and the influence on the power grid is controlled, so that high operational reliability is guaranteed. For the advancement of the current version of the standard VHPready, Fraunhofer FOKUS along with 14 other partners established an interdisciplinary industry forum in February 2014.

For the project VHPready, scientists of the competence center SQC work on the requirement analysis of a central reference system for decentralized energy plants. The scientists are involved in the selection and description of a test method that is in accordance with VHPready. Furthermore, they work on a concept and definition of a test suite for conformity and interoperability tests using the guidelines recommend by ETSI (European Telecommunications Standard Institute). The test suite verifies functional requirements of the VHPready standards, for example the communication protocol between a central and decentralized plant. Another key focus of their work lies in the contribution of a certification process for decentralized energy plants in accordance with VHPready.