Under the“double carbon”goal, the power supply subject of the new power system will gradually transform from fossil energy to renewable energy, which greatly increases the pressure on supply and demand for power systems. Virtual power plants can gather massive,decentralized, and diverse distributed resources through advanced regulatory technology to form a subject of flexible regulation, which provides a feasible path for ensuring the safe and reliable operation of the new power system. Firstly, the concepts and types of virtual power plant is introduced. Secondly, key technologies of existing virtual power plants are analyzed from four aspects：resource aggregation, cooperative control, optimized scheduling and commercial operation. Then typical project cases of virtual power plants at home and abroad are summarized. Finally, challenges faced by virtual power plants under the new power system are pointed out, and the development direction of virtual power plants under the new power system is expected from three aspects：external specific quantitative analysis, low-carbon aggregation regulation, and new commercial operations.