A Dynamic Social Network Matching Model for Virtual Power Plants and Distributed Energy Resources with Probabilistic Linguistic Information
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper may be interesting but lacks an explanation for the exact problem it tries to solve in the context of VPPs (operation? planning? Is it a market model?).
Matching DER and VPP does not appear to me a major problem in VPP contexts: DER need to choose VPPs, but according to remuneration; VPPs need to choose DERs, but according to the amount and type of flexibility they can reliably provide.
How this can be practically encoded in trust measures and linguistic attributes within a social network is not clear.
(maybe it is something motivated by a particular regulatory framework? If so, it must be explained with care).
Also, a more thorough review of the existing works about the specific problem being solved must be provided.
Specific observations:
r. 12,13: not clear the link between the problem and the solution proposed (esp., does not seem a solution at the operation level, rather a planning/management, or even a market model)
r. 37: add reference for the United States if possible
r.39 same with Japan
r.40 same with Australia
r.44,45: if possible link also to the original source of the 5 year plan
r.46-74: briefly comment on each citation, don't cite them in bulk
r. 84-92: a description of VPP and its mechanism should be added in order to introduce the proposed method (as long as examples of previous introduced methods, if any)
r.102: use also long form of DM acronym, because it is the first time you use it
r.127: define a multi-attribute decision problem (and why it does matter in the VPP context).
r.137: a sentence left from previous draft?
r.142-147: this may be introduced well before than here
r.254,257: experts? who are these in concrete, in the VPP context? What do you mean by fraudolent?
Is this a fraud detection algorithm? Is that relevant in VPPs? I am a bit confused about the context.
r.285,286: Figure 2 should be put before, as general introduction
r.290-298: i would put this explanation well before
r.299-301: why should competing companies share trust signals? Is there some kind of cooperation in VPP context? Why?
r.582-583: I don't see any reference afterwards..
r.613: sentence left from MDPI template
r.623,624: the model does incorporate a competitive nature, but not very specific to VPP
r. 631: left from MDPI template
r.635,636: left from MDPI template
Author Response
Responses to the Reviewer comments
We have carefully studied all the Reviewers’ comments point by point. In the revised manuscript, we have addressed reviewers’ concerns and polished the manuscript. The manuscript was polished by one or more of the native English speaking colleagues. The revised portions were marked in red. These revisions developed based on the reviewer comments are very helpful for us to achieve a stronger manuscript.
Reviewer 1:
The paper may be interesting but lacks an explanation for the exact problem it tries to solve in the context of VPPs (operation? planning? Is it a market model?).
Response: Thank you for pointing this out. This paper attempts to address the problem of limited resource allocation in the VPP planning stage. Existing studies have focused on the selection of partners for VPP or DER companies, and these studies have considered them from the perspective of one of the parties. In fact, the number of VPP and DER companies in the market is limited, and companies are not always able to choose the company that satisfies them the most, but only the one that satisfies them as much as possible. However, there is few paper on the mutual selection of partners with limited resources. Therefore, we try to address how to make full use of existing resources under the condition of limited resources to maximize the satisfaction of matching bilateral. The revised portions were marked in red in the manuscript (see Introduction, r. 48-58).
Matching DER and VPP does not appear to me a major problem in VPP contexts: DER need to choose VPPs, but according to remuneration; VPPs need to choose DERs, but according to the amount and type of flexibility they can reliably provide.
Response: Thank you for pointing this out. The two-sided matching problem we consider for VPP and DER companies is a multi-attribute problem. Specially, the consideration of DER companies by VPP companies can be considered in terms of attributes: quality, price, service capacity and technology level attributes; and the consideration of VPP companies by DER companies can be considered in terms of attributes:; quality, price, service capacity and economic strength. The revised portions were marked in red in the manuscript (see Section 3., r. 201-209).
How this can be practically encoded in trust measures and linguistic attributes within a social network is not clear. (maybe it is something motivated by a particular regulatory framework? If so, it must be explained with care).
Response: Thank you for your detailed advice. By reading the relevant literature, we found that trust between companies is usually based on a long-term cordial and cooperative relationship between the two parties, which is the result of continuous strengthening of one party’s satisfaction with the other [74]. And the company’s matching satisfaction of other companies are given in the form of language. Therefore, trust is calculated from the linguistic satisfaction evaluation. The revised portions were marked in red in the manuscript (see Section 3., r. 201-209).
r. 12,13: not clear the link between the problem and the solution proposed (esp., does not seem a solution at the operation level, rather a planning/management, or even a market model)
Response: Thank you for your detailed advice. The problem is how to achieve two-sided matching in the VPP planning stage with limited resources of VPP companies and DER companies. The revised portions were marked in red in the manuscript (see abstract, r. 12-13).
r. 37: add reference for the United States if possible
Response: Thank you for your suggestions. We have added 4 related papers to present VPP research in the United States. And the revised portions were marked in red in the manuscript (see Introduction section, r. 38).
[1] Choi E, Krishnan S, Larkin W W D. Household Cost-Effectiveness of Tesla’s Powerwall and Solar Roof across America’s Zip Code Tabulation Areas[J]. 2018.
[2] Gong H, Jones E S, Alden R E, et al. Virtual power plant control for large residential communities using hvac systems for energy storage[J]. IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, 2021, 58(1): 622-633.
[3] Cartwright E D. FERC order 2222 gives boost to DERs[J]. Climate and Energy, 2020, 37(5): 22-22.
[4] Cano C. FERC Order No. 2222: A New Day for Distributed Energy Resources[J]. 2020.
r.39 same with Japan
Response: Thank you for your suggestions. We have added 3 related papers to present VPP research in Japan. And the revised portions were marked in red in the manuscript (see Introduction section, r. 39-40).
[1] Ninagawa C. Outlook of the Virtual Power Plant: A Japan Perspective[M]//Virtual Power Plant System Integration Technology. Springer, Singapore, 2022: 243-250.
[2] Suzuki M, Inoue S, Shigehisa T. Field Test Result of Residential SOFC CHP System Over 10 Years, 89000 Hours[J]. ECS Transactions, 2021, 103(1): 25.
[3] Fan M, Tang X, Pei W, Kong L. Peer-Peer Electricity Transaction and Integrated Regulation of VPP Based on Blockchain[J]. 2020 IEEE 4th Conference on Energy Internet and Energy System Integration (EI2), 2020, 727-732.
r.40 same with Australia
Response: Thank you for your suggestions. We have added 1 related paper to present VPP research in Japan. And the revised portions were marked in red in the manuscript (see Introduction section, r. 41).
[1] Rai A, Calais P, Wild K, et al. The value of flexibility in Australia’s national electricity market[M]//Variable Generation, Flexible Demand. Academic Press, 2021: 329-354.
r.44,45: if possible link also to the original source of the 5 year plan
Response: Thank you for your suggestions. We have added a national document to present VPP research in China. And the revised portions were marked in red in the manuscript (see Introduction section, r. 47).
[1] National development and reform commission; National energy administration. Notice on the issuance of the “14th Five-Year Plan” modern energy system. Development and Reform Energy [2022] No. 210. [EB/OL] https://www.ndrc.gov.cn/xxgk/zcfb/ghwb/202203/t20220322_1320016_ext.html
r.47-75: briefly comment on each citation, don't cite them in bulk
Response: Thank you for your advice. We have reorganized and summarized the relevant literature on VPP and presented it in the form of a figure, which is more logical and of appropriate length. The revised portions were marked in red in the manuscript (see Introduction section, r. 111-112).
r. 86-95: a description of VPP and its mechanism should be added in order to introduce the proposed method (as long as examples of previous introduced methods, if any)
Response: Thank you for your advice. We have added the need to study VPP matching in order to introduce the two-sided matching problem to be studied in this paper. (see Introduction section, r. 91-93).
r.105: use also long form of DM acronym, because it is the first time you use it
Response: Thank you for pointing this out. We have corrected these problems and similar problems in the whole manuscript. (see Preliminaries section, r. 122).
r.131: define a multi-attribute decision problem (and why it does matter in the VPP context).
Response: Thank you for pointing this out. In actual two-sided matching process, VPP and DER select partners from multiple attributes, and different participants will judge and select suitable matches for themselves based on different evaluation attribute. And finally achieve a reasonable match between VPP and DER. The revised portions were marked in red in the manuscript (see Introduction section, r. 150-158).
r.141: a sentence left from previous draft?
Response: Thank you for pointing this out. We have corrected these problems and similar problems in the whole manuscript.
r.142-147: this may be introduced well before than here
Response: Thank you for pointing this out. This section is a review of general bilateral matching methods.
r.254,257: experts? who are these in concrete, in the VPP context? What do you mean by fraudolent?
Is this a fraud detection algorithm? Is that relevant in VPPs? I am a bit confused about the context.
Response: Thank you for pointing this out. There is no fraud detection algorithm in this paper. I'm very sorry for our description which mislead you. The bilateral matching problem for VPP and DER firms is a dynamic process in which both VPP and DER firms first provide satisfaction ratings of other firms (both for different types of firms and for similar firms). Then, at the end of this round of bilateral matching, when the matching results are not satisfactory, all companies move to the next stage of the bilateral matching process. At this point, the satisfaction ratings of VPP and DER companies will be influenced by the information on the satisfaction ratings of the most authoritative companies as well as their most trusted companies in the previous round of bilateral matching process. For this reason, we need to be clear about the social trust relationship between companies at each stage in order to find the most authoritative company as well as its most trusted company. However, in the actual decision, in order to increase their influence, some companies will intentionally give wrong information to increase or decrease their influence factor to make themselves the most authoritative company or the most trustworthy company. Therefore, this paper introduces the trust rank anti-fraud algorithm to identify the companies with fraud. In the trust rank algorithm, one of the steps is to manually identify the potential fraudulent companies screened by the trust rank algorithm by additional experts, and the experts referred to in this paper are the outsiders jointly developed by VPP and DER. The revised portions were marked in red in the manuscript (see 3.2. subsection Dynamics social trust degree, r. 270-277).
r.285,286: Figure 2 should be put before, as general introduction
Response: Thank you for pointing this out. We put it in front to help readers better understand the content of Section 3 (r. 181-182). And, we also summarize the whole process in words in the last part of this section (r. 322-333).
r.290-298: i would put this explanation well before
Response: Thank you for pointing this out. The probabilistic linguistic social trust measure we propose in Section 3 is an independent and general method that can be used in other settings that need to deal with inter-company or inter-personal interrelationships to measure the degree of their associative relationships, the degree of mutual trust. Section 4 is a direct application of the method in Section 3 to the two-sided matching environment of VPP and DER. Therefore, we tend to place it separately in Section 3.
r.299-301: why should competing companies share trust signals? Is there some kind of cooperation in VPP context? Why?
Response: Thank you for pointing this out. By reviewing the relevant papers [1], we have learned that: if the competition in the industry in which the companies are located is particularly fierce, then the mutual evaluation among the companies is to attack each other, and the companies belong to vicious competition; if the development space in the industry in which the companies are located is sufficient, then the companies will exchange and learn from each other to promote the development of the industry, so as to improve the core competitiveness of the companies, and the companies belong to benign competition at this time. VPP is an emerging industry with large development space and promising development prospects, so the mutual evaluation among VPP companies is benign. The revised portions were marked in red in the manuscript (see subsection 4.1. Problem description, r. 342-347).
[1] Jin Z.M.; Liu J.G. The effects of E-business on industry structure. Journal of Tsinghua University(Philosophy and Social Sciences). 2003, 18, 5.
r.582-583: I don't see any reference afterwards..
Response: Thank you for pointing this out. We have corrected these problems and similar problems in the whole manuscript. (see subsection 5.3. Comparison and analysis, r. 655).
r.613: sentence left from MDPI template
Response: Thank you for pointing this out. We have corrected these problems and similar problems in the whole manuscript.
r.623,624: the model does incorporate a competitive nature, but not very specific to VPP.
Response: Thank you for pointing this out. In order to reduce the construction cost of power infrastructure, VPP companies are bound to attract quality DER resources by investing in DER companies, while competitive relationships exist [1]. DER companies, as service providers, form social relationships based on business, social factors and other interactions, and influence the matching preferences of other companies through mutual resources, information and knowledge. The revised portions were marked in red in the manuscript (see Section 4, r. 342-347).
[1] Yi Z; Xu Y; Wang H; Sang, L. Coordinated operation strategy for a virtual power plant with multiple DER aggregators. IEEE T. Sustain. Energ. 2021, 12, 2445-2458.
r. 631: left from MDPI template
Response: Thank you for pointing this out. We have corrected these problems and similar problems in the whole manuscript.
r.635,636: left from MDPI template
Response: Thank you for pointing this out. We have corrected these problems and similar problems in the whole manuscript.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The author tried to solve virtual power 2 plants and distributed energy resources with probabilistic lin- 3 guistic information.
The following points needs to be addressed to improve the quality of the paper.
1. The author mentioned as " a two-sided match between virtual power 12 plants and distributed energy companies is needed to better implement resource aggregation management'. But the same is not properly explained in a convincing way.
2. There is big jump in most of the equations. There is no continuity. This is highly commendable.
3. Max Equation seems to be wrong.
4. Strong validation of the results is missing
5. Graphical representation can be added.
6. The results are poorly validating the incorporating DERs.
Author Response
Responses to the Reviewer comments
We have carefully studied all the Reviewers’ comments point by point. In the revised manuscript, we have addressed reviewers’ concerns and polished the manuscript. The manuscript was polished by one or more of the native English speaking colleagues. The revised portions were marked in red. These revisions developed based on the reviewer comments are very helpful for us to achieve a stronger manuscript.
1. The author mentioned as " a two-sided match between virtual power plants and distributed energy companies is needed to better implement resource aggregation management'. But the same is not properly explained in a convincing way.
Response: Thank you for pointing this out. This paper attempts to address the problem of limited resource allocation in the VPP planning stage. Existing studies have focused on the selection of partners for VPP or DER companies, and these studies have considered them from the perspective of one of the parties. In fact, the number of VPP and DER companies in the market is limited, and companies are not always able to choose the company that satisfies them the most, but only the one that satisfies them as much as possible. However, there is few paper on the mutual selection of partners with limited resources. Therefore, we try to address how to make full use of existing resources under the condition of limited resources to maximize the satisfaction of matching bilateral. The revised portions were marked in red in the manuscript (see Introduction, r. 48-58).
2. There is big jump in most of the equations. There is no continuity. This is highly commendable.
Response: Thank you for pointing this out. We have corrected these problems and similar problems in the whole manuscript.
3. Max Equation seems to be wrong
Response: Thank you for pointing this out. We note that it is a sign writing error at the integer programming model P1, and we have corrected it. (see subsection 4.3., r. 430-436).
4. Strong validation of the results is missing
Response: Thanks for this important suggestion for validating the method and the suggestion is adopted by adding a comparison with the existing methods. In Section 4, we compare the results obtained by the proposed method with other methods in two aspects. The revised sections are marked in red in the manuscript. (see Section 5, r. 633-652).
5. Graphical representation can be added.
Response: Thank you for pointing this out. In order to facilitate readers to understand the relationship between Section 3 and Section 4 more clearly, we added an additional research framework diagram. The revised sections are marked in red in the manuscript. (see Section 4, r. 414-415).
6. The results are poorly validating the incorporating DERs.
Response: Thank you for pointing this out. In Section 4, we add a comparison with existing methods to illustrate the advantages of our method by comparing it with the Wang et al.’s method, with the advantage of incorporating DER’s input in the two-sided matching process. The revised sections are marked in red in the manuscript. (see Section 5, r. 637-641)
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The English grammar, text size should be corrected in the whole manuscript.
Reduce the sizes of the figures to be within the margin.
Add a figure of briquettes with scale reference
Author Response
Responses to the Reviewer comments
We have carefully studied all the Reviewers’ comments point by point. In the revised manuscript, we have addressed reviewers’ concerns and polished the manuscript. The manuscript was polished by one or more of the native English speaking colleagues. The revised portions were marked in red. These revisions developed based on the reviewer comments are very helpful for us to achieve a stronger manuscript.
1. Implementation part need to improve the technical language
Response: We have obtained the assistance from a colleague whose native language is English to check the language errors and revise the whole manuscript. The revised manuscript will provide a more readable description on the method and the main results of this study.
2. Reduce the sizes of the figures to be within the margin
Response: Thank you for pointing this out. We have corrected these problems and similar problems in the whole manuscript.
3. Add a figure of briquettes with scale reference
Response: Thank you for pointing this out. We have reorganized the literature related to VPP and present it in a figure. The revised sections are marked in red in the manuscript. (see Introduction section, r. 47-57; r. 113-114)
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper has been substantially improved.
Check for minor spelling/grammar mistakes (e.g. r.92: "so as to saves").
Also, if possible, add an english reference to the 5-year plan, for international readers
Author Response
Responses to the Reviewer comments
We have carefully studied all the Reviewers’ comments point by point. In the revised manuscript, we have addressed reviewers’ concerns and polished the manuscript. The manuscript was polished by one or more of the native English-speaking colleagues. The revised portions were marked in red. These revisions developed based on the reviewer comments are very helpful for us to achieve a stronger manuscript.
1. Check for minor spelling/grammar mistakes.
Response: Thank you for pointing this out. We have obtained assistance from a colleague whose native language is English to check the language errors and revise the whole manuscript. The revised manuscript will provide a more readable description on the method and the main results of this study.
2. Also, if possible, add an English reference to the 5-year plan, for international readers.
Response: Thank you for your suggestions. We have added 2 related English papers for international friends to obtain the content of China’s 5-year plan on energy. And the revised portions were marked in red in the manuscript (see Introduction section, r. 47).
[1] Stern N.; Xie C. China’s new growth story: linking the 14th Five-Year Plan with the 2060 carbon neutrality pledge[J]. Journal of Chinese Economic and Business Studies, 2022: 1-21.
[2] Jiang H.L.; Liu Y.X.; Feng Y.M.; Zhou B.Z.; Li Y.X. Analysis of Power Generation Technology Trend in 14th Five-Year Plan Under the Background of Carbon Peak and Carbon Neutrality[J]. Power Generation Technology, 2022, 43(1): 54.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Still, the reviewer is not satisfied with the validation of the results. I am expecting numerical results to be compared with existing results. Or some graphs show that the proposed method is superior to others.
If there is no existing work, then the author can consider two different methods on your own for sake of comparison. Without the strong validation of results, How can redears believe in your results ?
Author Response
Responses to the Reviewer comments
We have carefully studied all the Reviewers’ comments point by point. In the revised manuscript, we have addressed reviewers’ concerns and polished the manuscript. The manuscript was polished by one or more of the native English-speaking colleagues. The revised portions were marked in red. These revisions developed based on the reviewer's comments are very helpful for us to achieve a stronger manuscript.
1. Still, the reviewer is not satisfied with the validation of the results. I am expecting numerical results to be compared with existing results. Or some graphs show that the proposed method is superior to others. If there is no existing work, then the author can consider two different methods on your own for sake of comparison. Without the strong validation of results, how can readers believe in your results?
Response: Thank you for pointing this out. Inspired by your suggestions, we try to compare the proposed model with others' proposed models numerically. Specially, the innovation of the model proposed by Wang et al. is that it considers peer influence in the probabilistic linguistic environment, while the innovation of our model is that it considers competitive relationships in the probabilistic linguistic environment. Therefore, the differences between the two models and the advantages of our model are analyzed, while keeping other conditions consistent. The innovation of the model proposed by Lu et al. is to consider the influence of unilateral social network relationships on bilateral matching, while the innovation of our model is to consider the influence of bilateral social network relationships on matching results. While keeping other conditions consistent, we find that we obtain better matching results, which illustrates where the advantages of our model lie.
In addition, we add some graphs to show the comparison between the proposed model and other’s models visually. The revised sections are marked in red in the manuscript. (see Section 5, r. 632-659).
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
