A virtual power plant (VPP) is operated by an aggregator that acts as a market intermediary, aggregating consumers to participate in wholesale power markets. By setting incentive prices, the aggregator induces consumers to sell energy and profits by providing this aggregated energy to the market. This supply is enabled by consumers' flexibility to adjust electricity consumption in response to market conditions. However, heterogeneity in flexibility means that profit-maximizing VPP pricing can create inequalities in participation and benefit allocation across consumers. In this paper, we develop a fairness-aware pricing framework to analyze how different fairness notions reshape system performance, measured by consumer Nash welfare, total consumer utility, and social welfare. We consider three fairness criteria: energy fairness, which ensures equitable energy provision; price fairness, which ensures similar incentive prices; and utility fairness, which ensures comparable levels of consumer utility. We model the aggregator-consumer interaction as a Stackelberg game and derive consumers' optimal responses to incentive prices. Using a stylized model, we show that profit-only pricing systematically disadvantages less flexible consumers. We further show that energy fairness can either improve or worsen all performance measures, and gains across most measures arise only at moderate fairness levels. Surprisingly, price fairness never benefits less flexible consumers, even when it reduces price disparities. By contrast, utility fairness protects less flexible consumers without benefiting more flexible ones. We validate our findings using data from an experiment in Norway under a tiered pricing scheme. Our results provide regulators and VPP operators with a systematic map linking fairness definitions and enforcement levels to operational and welfare outcomes.

翻译：虚拟电厂由聚合商运营，该聚合商作为市场中介，整合消费者参与批发电力市场。通过设定激励价格，聚合商诱导消费者出售能源，并通过向市场提供这种聚合能源来获取利润。这种供应依赖于消费者根据市场条件调整用电量的灵活性。然而，灵活性异质性意味着以利润最大化为目标的虚拟电厂定价可能导致不同消费者在参与度和收益分配上产生不平等。本文构建了一个考虑公平性的定价框架，分析不同公平观念如何重塑系统性能，通过消费者纳什福利、消费者总效用和社会福利来衡量。我们考虑三种公平准则：能源公平，确保能源供应均等；价格公平，确保激励价格相似；效用公平，确保消费者效用水平相当。我们将聚合商与消费者之间的互动建模为斯塔克尔伯格博弈，并推导出消费者对激励价格的最优响应。通过一个简化模型，我们证明仅以利润为导向的定价系统性地不利于灵活性较低的消费者。我们进一步表明，能源公平可能改善或恶化所有性能指标，且大多数指标的提升仅出现在中等公平水平下。令人惊讶的是，价格公平从未惠及灵活性较低的消费者，即使它减少了价格差异。相比之下，效用公平保护了灵活性较低的消费者，同时并未使灵活性较高的消费者获益。我们利用挪威一项实验中的阶梯定价方案数据验证了我们的发现。研究结果为监管机构和虚拟电厂运营商提供了一张系统地图，将公平定义及执行力度与运营和福利结果联系起来。