a vpp acts as an intermediary between ders and the wholesale electricity market and trades energy on behalf of der owners who by themselves are unable to participate in that market. the vpp behaves as a conventional dispatchable power plant from the point of view of other market participants, although it is indeed a cluster of many diverse ders. also, in the competitive electricity markets, a virtual power plant acts as an arbitrageur between diverse energy trading floors (i.e., bilateral and ppa contracts, forward and futures markets, and the pool).