Costless renewable energy distribution model based on cooperative game theory for energy communities considering its members’ active contributions

Abstract

Energy communities enable close cooperation and collaboration among members (i.e., consumers, producers, and prosumers), where buildings, energy resources, and loads can be managed at the members' level while cooperating with the community. To influence and promote the community's members' interactions, models of energy sharing can be applied. This paper addresses the distribution of community-owned renewable energy among the community members' buildings. The proposed costless renewable energy distribution model considers the individual participation of each member in demand response events launched to promote the balance between consumption and generation inside the energy community. The distribution model can distribute renewable energy in a fair and costless approach, meaning that the energy receivers will not pay for the energy they receive. The proposed model uses the Shapley value to distribute renewable energy according to its members' individual contributions to the community. The proposed model is tested using a case study of an energy community, using a dataset for one summer month. The results show an energy cost reduction of 12.86 % for the community and an average energy cost reduction of 31.03 % for the community's members.