Abstract: Due to the restrictions of the source-side and load-side characteristics, Shanghai Power Grid faces such problems as high pressure for renewable energy accommodation and lack of flexible regulation tools. To this end, Shanghai Electric Power Company carried out demonstration projects for virtual power plants to explore the innovative applications of virtual power plants and accelerate the construction of new power systems. First of all, the necessity for development of virtual power plants was analyzed from two aspects of social development and new power system construction. And then, the preliminary exploration work and innovative applications of Shanghai virtual power plants were introduced according to the technical route of “resource exploitation-market transaction-operation scheduling-information communication”. Subsequently, the development prospects of Shanghai virtual power plants were explored from the expansion of distributed resources, diversified market transactions and cloud-edge collaborative control. Finally, the transaction situation of Shanghai virtual power plants was investigated, and relevant experience in operating processes and mechanism design was summarized, which can provided a reference for development of virtual power plant projects in other provinces and cities.