{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,11,27]],"date-time":"2025-11-27T11:15:43Z","timestamp":1764242143642,"version":"3.46.0"},"reference-count":41,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"6","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,11,13]],"date-time":"2025-11-13T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1762992000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100000780","name":"European Union","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","award":["02\/C05-i01.01\/2022.PC644936001-00000045"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["02\/C05-i01.01\/2022.PC644936001-00000045"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100000780","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"crossref"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/100031478","name":"NextGenerationEU","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100031478","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"crossref"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Smart Cities"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Efficient scheduling of virtual power plants (VPPs) is essential for the integration of distributed energy resources into modern power systems. This study presents a CUDA-accelerated Multiple-Chain Simulated Annealing (MC-SA) algorithm tailored for optimizing VPP scheduling. Traditional Simulated Annealing algorithms are inherently sequential, limiting their scalability for large-scale applications. The proposed MC-SA algorithm mitigates this limitation by executing multiple independent annealing chains concurrently, enhancing the exploration of the solution space and reducing the requisite number of sequential cooling iterations. The algorithm employs a dual-level parallelism strategy: at the prosumer level, individual energy producers and consumers are assessed in parallel; at the algorithmic level, multiple Simulated Annealing chains operate simultaneously. This architecture not only expedites computation but also improves solution accuracy. Experimental evaluations demonstrate that the CUDA-based MC-SA achieves substantial speedups\u2014up to 10\u00d7 compared to a single-chain baseline implementation while maintaining or enhancing solution quality. Our analysis reveals an empirical power-law relationship between parallel chains and required sequential iterations (iterations \u221d chains\u22120.88\u00b10.17), demonstrating that using 50 chains reduces the required number of sequential iterations by approximately 10\u00d7 compared to single-chain SA while maintaining equivalent solution quality. The algorithm demonstrates scalable performance across VPP sizes from 250 to 1000 prosumers, with approximately 50 chains providing the optimal balance between solution quality and computational efficiency for practical applications.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/smartcities8060192","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,11,14]],"date-time":"2025-11-14T09:06:36Z","timestamp":1763111196000},"page":"192","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["AI-Driven Virtual Power Plant Scheduling: CUDA-Accelerated Parallel Simulated Annealing Approach"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"8","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-5581-1279","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Ali","family":"Abbasi","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"DTx\u2014Digital Transformation CoLAB, University of Minho, 4800-058 Guimar\u00e3es, Portugal"},{"name":"Centro de Algoritmi, Universidade do Minho, Campus of Gualar, 4704-553 Braga, Portugal"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-1512-1126","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Jo\u00e3o","family":"Sobral","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Centro de Algoritmi, Universidade do Minho, Campus of Gualar, 4704-553 Braga, Portugal"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-7986-3754","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Ricardo","family":"Rodrigues","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"DTx\u2014Digital Transformation CoLAB, University of Minho, 4800-058 Guimar\u00e3es, Portugal"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,11,13]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Omel\u010denko, V., and Manokhin, V. 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