Local Electricity Market operation in presence of residential energy storage in low voltage distribution network: Role of retail market pricing

Abstract

Local Electricity Market (LEM) appears as a promising consumer-centric market-based approach that extends the self-consumption method, widely implemented in residential households, to collective self-consumption in the local energy communities, enabled through peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions. To facilitate the integration of LEM in the wholesale electricity market (WEM), it is paramount to comprehend the synergy of retail electricity pricing on the LEM operation hosted in the low-voltage distribution network (LVDN). The paper presents a co-simulation framework consisting of a local electricity market model coupled with a three-phase distribution network simulator to perform a holistic case study for a smart energy community in Ireland. The novel contribution of the work is to explore the potential of local electricity trading in the presence of residential energy storage (ES), under different retail pricing schemes existent in Ireland, by evaluating economic benefits to the energy community and network performance of three-phase LVDN. Extensive simulation studies indicate that the presence of residential ES significantly boosts P2P transactions under static time-of-use (SToU) pricing. These P2P transactions are primarily contributed by energy arbitrage (among customers in LEM) in the winter and surplus PV-generated electricity in the summer. On the other hand, the scheduling of ES under SToU pricing deteriorates the network performance of LVDN in winter, showing the highest active power loss and under-voltage scenario among all the cases. Another unique aspect of LVDN is the voltage unbalance studied and found to be highly correlated with ES operation under SToU pricing. Recommendations have been made to the relevant stakeholders and market actors, identifying key aspects necessary to roll out the LEM under retail electricity pricing schemes.