Collective self-consumption in multi-tenancy buildings–To what extent do consumers’ goals influence the energy system's performance?

Abstract

Collective self-consumption can have an important role contributing to decarbonization and sustainability goals in cities. However, the implementation of such projects is hindered by technical, economic, social and regulatory barriers, which may compromise those goals. Based on the recent guiding principles for collective energy systems established under the scope of the European Union's Clean Energy Package, this work aims to assess how cost minimization and self-consumption maximization collective objectives may influence the economic and energy performance of a shared electricity generation and self-consumption project implemented in a multi-tenancy environment. A multiagent framework is developed to model the building dynamics while optimization algorithms are implemented to exploit individual and collective goals. Our findings show that cost minimization and self-consumption maximization can be conflicting objectives and influence the project energy and economic performance. While the cost minimization objective is more attractive for projects in which cost-driven participants are concerned with recovering investment, the self-consumption maximization objective is more suitable for cost-indifferent participants and projects aimed at energy self-sufficiency. These results raise relevant hints for stakeholders (participants, investors and policymakers), contributing to make better investment decisions and design better policies incentivizing electricity generation and management in multi-tenancy buildings.