Energy management in energy communities

Abstract

Recently, end customers connected to the distribution level have gained a more active role in the power systems due to the proliferation of distributed energy resources (DERs). Energy communities (ECs) are proposed as a viable concept to coordinate the DERs of end customers to achieve social, environmental, and economic targets. This chapter provides an overview of EC concepts, the common elements of ECs, the legal figures of ECs defined by EU regulations, and modeling approaches for energy sharing in ECs. Moreover, it presents a technoeconomic comparison between EC and home energy management system (HEMS) approaches for a community of residential participants. The findings proved the numerous benefits that could be obtained by coordinating houses as ECs, like decreasing the energy costs, decreasing energy purchased from retail, and decreasing energy sold to the retailer compared to individual management of houses using HEMS. However, the EC formation by houses increases the peak of energy purchased from the retailer.

Recently, end customers connected to the distribution level have gained a more active role in the power systems due to the proliferation of distributed energy resources (DERs). Energy communities (ECs) are proposed as a viable concept to coordinate the DERs of end customers to achieve social, environmental, and economic targets. This chapter provides an overview of EC concepts, the common elements of ECs, the legal figures of ECs defined by EU regulations, and modeling approaches for energy sharing in ECs. Moreover, it presents a technoeconomic comparison between EC and home energy management system (HEMS) approaches for a community of residential participants. The findings proved the numerous benefits that could be obtained by coordinating houses as ECs, like decreasing the energy costs, decreasing energy purchased from retail, and decreasing energy sold to the retailer compared to individual management of houses using HEMS. However, the EC formation by houses increases the peak of energy purchased from the retailer.