Robust energy management through aggregation of flexible resources in multi-home micro energy hub

Abstract

This study introduces a novel approach to home energy management systems (HEMS) through the development of a micro energy hub. The hub proficiently aggregates flexible resources across multiple homes, underpinned by a detailed modeling of appliance characteristics for enhanced energy management accuracy. The integration of Distributed Energy Systems (DES) further enriches the micro energy hub's capabilities, while a multi-objective two-stage robust optimization (M-TSRO) model is developed to address the inherent uncertainty of DES, aiming to concurrently realize energy savings, carbon emission reduction, and load smoothing. The effectiveness of the proposed micro energy hub is evaluated using real-world REFIT data set, demonstrating improved load scheduling, smoother load profiles, and enhanced energy flexibility. The results indicate significant improvements in grid control levels, reaching 68.75% in the basic scenario and 56.25% in the prosumer scenario. The prosumer scenario exhibits a significant reduction of 13.34% in the integrated objective compared to the basic scenario. This reduction is primarily driven by a notable decrease of 31.44% in the operational cost and an 8.06% decline in carbon emissions of the micro energy hub. These findings highlight the potential of micro energy hubs in optimizing energy consumption and increasing power flexibility through collaborative load scheduling strategies.