Collective Self-consumption Research Articles

Optimization of Energy Allocation Strategies in Spanish Collective Self-Consumption Photovoltaic Systems

Collective self-consumption (CSC) systems offer a great opportunity to increase the viability of photovoltaic installations by reducing costs and increasing profitability for consumers. In addition, CSC systems increase self-sufficiency (SS) and self-consumption (SC). These systems require a proper energy allocation strategy (EAS) to define the energy distribution within the CSC. However, most EASs do not analyze the individual impact of the rules and mechanisms adopted. Therefore, six different EASs are proposed and evaluated in terms of both collective and individual cost, SC, and SS. The results show that the EASs based on minimizing collective costs are the most beneficial for the community, although they imply an unfair distribution of energy among users. On the other hand, the other EASs proposed stand out for reaching an equilibrium in terms of cost, SS, and SC, although the collective profitability is lower. The best results are achieved considering dynamic coefficients, which are preferred over static ones.

Modelling renewable energy communities: assessing the impact of different configurations, technologies and types of participants

BackgroundEnergy communities (ECs) have emerged as a solution to support governments mitigating climate change and comply with decarbonization goals, while introducing end-users on the energy value chain. In this paradigm, citizens have an active role in reducing electricity demand from the utility grid, by generating, sharing and/or trading locally generated renewable energy, such as solar energy. However, the economic and environmental outputs of energy communities are dependent on a variety of factors, such as technology features (renewable energy generation, existence of flexible equipment and/or energy storage systems), types of participants (consumers and prosumers with different electricity intensity and load profiles), and electricity sharing/trading agreements. As such, assessing the impact these will have on delivering benefits to the energy community and its participants is of paramount importance.MethodsThis work models different energy communities’ design typologies in Lisbon, Portugal considering different types of consumers with heterogenous electricity demand profiles and willingness to participate, multiple technology deployment scenarios (solar systems installation, batteries, and electric vehicles), and electricity trading (collective self-consumption versus peer-to-peer trading).ResultsResults demonstrate community electricity cost savings are up to 42%, with self-sufficiency rate up to 12.5%, which is considerably low due to the participation of high demanding sectors (such as industry or retail). At participants’ individual level, electricity costs savings can reach 48% and 53%, for residential consumers and prosumers, respectively, while for high-demanding participants are slightly lower: 43% for hotel, 44% for retail, 13% for industry and 5% for university. Individual self-sufficiency rates register highest results for the residential prosumers (35% for PV prosumers, 28% for PV + electric vehicles and 54% with PV + batteries) while for other participants results fall between 6% (retail) and 26% (industry).ConclusionsWe conclude that for ECs deployment, individual PV self-consumption assets are not sufficient, thus greater PV sizes and higher adoption rates should be considered, according to consumer and prosumers shares. The share/trade of PV surplus, paired with competitive aggregation tariffs results in positive economic and environmental outputs, for the majority of both consumers and prosumers.

Review of demand-side energy sharing and collective self-consumption schemes in future power systems

Review of demand-side energy sharing and collective self-consumption schemes in future power systems

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

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.

Energy communities in Europe: An overview of issues and regulatory and economic solutions

As part of the ongoing transition towards decarbonisation and decentralisation of energy systems, collective self-consumption and Energy Communities (ECs) have become increasingly relevant in Europe as several concepts have emerged, framed by two EU directives. However, their potential to become a standard organisational model is still uncertain, as the structure of ECs may jeopardise existing market principles and increase system costs. This article provides an overview of the state of the art of national transpositions of ECs by reviewing recent studies on European implementation and energy-sharing strategies, particularly regarding peer-topeer trading. These approaches raise fundamental questions about the financial viability and development of the electricity system and are compared to the latest experimental findings. Hence significant barriers are pointed out and key implications for self-consumption and EC policies are given to elaborate adapted national conditions for ECs and to ensure adequate tariff reforms. This paper identifies the need for further investigation on national approaches to enable the efficient and sustainable development of ECs. Moreover, in the interest of the consumer's well-being and the well-functioning of the market, a multidisciplinary approach should be integrated that incorporates adapted regulations and appropriate framework conditions for ECs according to the prevailing economic and social context.

Recoupled: A simulation tool for renewable energy communities coupling electric and thermal energies

Renewable energy communities (RECs) are legal entities where citizens, small-to-medium en- terprises (SMEs) and local authorities join to manage cooperatively energy from renewable sources. Since the regulation requires to evaluate energy fluxes on the hour base, the operative control and performance assessment of these new energy hubs become complex and require the handling of data such as production from renewable energy sources (RES) and end user con- sumption, that are intrinsically affected by uncertainties. In this contribution, an optimization tool for the operational management of a REC is proposed. RECs can contain renewable energy technologies (photovoltaic or solar thermal panels, biofuel burners), electric, heating and cooling end users and coupling components (e.g., heat pumps). The tool can be used at the planning level to compare different REC configurations based on their performances, assuming optimal man- agement of the available technologies. In this paper, the tool is tested in the simulation of three case studies of collective self-consumption (that in Italy is a REC where all end users are in the same building), located at different latitudes of the Italian country.

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF BUSINESS MODELS OF PROSUMERS WITH RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES

The review of current models of renewable energy promoters in Ukraine focuses on consumer groups that use renewable energy sources, new business models and modern approaches to market regulation, which further affect the modernization of infrastructure in accordance with the requirements of the European Union and energy policy. The author analyzes the formation of tariff policy according to each business model and describes the impact of preferential tariffs in the functioning of the models. This article examines the impact of energy cooperatives and community energy communities, what value they bring to the transition to alternative energy sources, and how they can be developed through energy policy and regulatory frameworks. It has been shown that the management of energy cooperatives and communities during peak consumption periods can influence the balancing of the energy system. It has been found that business models of collective consumption in market relations expand the definition of self-consumption in many ways. The Tenant's Electricity business model involves some form of independent consumption of solar energy from photovoltaic installations in apartment buildings. The Private Grid or Microgrid model allows consumers and prosumers to experiment with different energy technologies that simultaneously maximize their own consumption and offer services to grid operators. It also shows a mechanism for covering electricity shortages through collective self-consumption, in which the local grid operator provides careful management of consumer meter data.
 The presented 15 business models of prosumerism allow us to explore the ways in which some models can be advantageous compared to others by avoiding various components in the formation of retail energy prices, and by generating new revenues through flexibility. The possibility of schemes with the ability to "aggregate" the flexibility of consumers and use the flexibility of many small energy systems to meet the large needs of power system operators is identified. Examples of business models for collective consumers that benefit from energy efficiency and decarbonization of other energy sources, such as heat and transport, are presented. The paper also considers possible business models of prosumerism and schemes for the provision of energy services between the owners of renewable generation and the distribution system operator, transmission system operator, and other market participants. It is proposed to solve the problem of expanding prosumerism by conducting a comparative analysis of business models.

A new smart batteries management for Renewable Energy Communities

Based on the European Directive, the Italian Government has recently published the technical rules for accessing the service for valorizations and incentivizing shared electricity, kick-starting the setting-up of Renewable Energy Communities (RECs).A techno-economic analysis is performed based on a real case in the city of Florence to show the benefits that the creation of a REC can bring to the stakeholders: consumers, prosumers, the national grid operator and third-party companies. Moreover, this study focuses on the role of batteries within a REC by comparing three different battery management systems (BMS).The standard BMS (StBMS) is developed for individual prosumer self-consumption (SC) and not for REC collective-self-consumption (CSC), which is thus penalized by the presence of batteries. For that reason, a new smart BMS (SmBMS) based on REC real-time data monitoring is proposed. This solution guarantees the same level of CSC as in the case without batteries, and compared to the StBMS, it ensures greater REC energy independence from the national grid and leads to more incentives for all stakeholders, causing only a negligible economic loss for prosumers, as their individual SC slightly decreases.The optimal BMS (OpBMS), based on deterministic knowledge of demand and production curves, could guarantee even greater REC energy independence and a better investment for all REC participants, but since it cannot be implemented, it is calculated only to be used as a benchmark to assess other BMSs and to explore the potential of forecasting based methods.StBMS and SmBMS are simulated by Multi​ Energy System Simulator (MESS) while OpBMS by a Mixed-integer linear programming model (MILP).

Configuration Selection for Renewable Energy Community Using MCDM Methods

By 2050, the European Union plans to make Europe the first carbon-neutral continent and a global leader in climate-green industries. Recently, many decisions have been taken in the world to ensure the energy transition from fossil fuel to renewable energy. The creation of renewable energy communities (REC) is among the solutions used to increase this transition. This study presents 16 different configurations for energy self-consumption in RECs containing different industrial factories. One mathematical model is proposed for each configuration, and they have been solved according to different criteria. The comparisons are made between these configurations according to economic, environmental, technical, and social criteria. Then, four multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods are used to choose the best configurations considering all the criteria. For this purpose, the achieved results from the mathematical models are used as input for the MCDM methods. The findings demonstrate that the most effective configurations combine both individual and collective self-consumption. Furthermore, the inclusion of collective production results in multiple advantages, including a 64.71% rise in economic gains, a 26.95% decrease in CO2 emissions, a 21.39% improvement in self-sufficiency, and a significant increase in job creation by 175.24%. In addition, incorporating storage enables a substantial rise in the degree of self-sufficiency, leading to reduced reliance on the power grid and consequent reduction in CO2 emissions.

A Three-Stage Strategy With Settlement for an Energy Community Management Under Grid Constraints

This paper focuses on a local energy market where a group of households in a low voltage (LV) grid is organized as an energy community. A three-stage management strategy is proposed under the French collective self-consumption framework. In the first day-ahead stage, households coordinate with the community manager to minimize the overall energy bills for the next day. Then, real-time operation (second stage) focuses on the mitigation of forecast uncertainties and voltage violation, by utilizing the reserve of the local production/storage assets. Finally, the third stage contractually allocates the community energy among the households on 30 min basis (based on the French regulation), in order to ensure fair individual cost reduction and possibly create economic surplus in the community. The proposed community management strategy is evaluated on a LV grid with 55 households, and the results show the proposed strategy achieve an average of 30% individual cost reduction among the users compared to the base scenarios. Furthermore, different pricing scenarios are compared through sensitivity studies and scalability tests are run on larger systems.

Assessing P2P energy markets contribution for 2050 decarbonization goals

Energy communities (ECs) present a viable option to support energy transition at local scale. Peer-to-peer (P2P) energy markets can trigger prosumers to increase local renewable self-consumption, by allowing trading amongst peers. Yet, it is still uncertain how much can ECs contribute for decarbonization goals.In this work, a P2P optimization model was developed to assess P2P role for decarbonizing the 2050 horizon, in Portugal. Each of the 278 municipalities was considered to establish an EC, with four demanding sectors as participants. ECs results were analysed in 6 clusters, in terms of energy, costs and CO2 emissions savings, for three energy trading scenarios, being then upscaled to national level.Collective self-consumption and P2P scenarios resulted, respectively, in costs (31.48% and 31.49%) and CO2 emissions (26.34% and 26.33%) reductions, at national level, which reveals that most of the savings result from collective self-consumption. The services’ sector revealed as an active trader, with the highest amount of traded energy on P2P market, contrarily to industry, while the residential sector demonstrated a clear buyer and seller behaviour, depending on the type of municipality (urban or rural). However, the industry partner was the one getting the lowest P2P prices.

Collective self-consumption of solar photovoltaic and batteries for a micro-grid energy system

The paper carried out a techno-economic analysis in order to obtain the optimum battery storage capacity in conjunction with a photovoltaic array that can match the desired household load at highest possible self-consumption. In addition, it determined the economic feasibility of a proposed micro-system. Annual energy consumption, irradiance, and ambient temperature were measured at 1-min resolution for the year 2021. Simulations of a stationary economic model are performed for the years 2021 through 2030.The results showed that the photovoltaic array at 2.7 kWp capacity can generate an annual energy of approx. 4295.4 kWh and the optimal battery capacity which can satisfy 91.1% of self-consumption and energy cost of $0.256/kWh is 14.4 kWh. Furthermore, two third-order polynomial relationships between self-consumption and net present cost with energy cost were solved.

Analysis and optimisation of collective self-consumption in residential buildings in Spain

Studies on self-consumption in residential use are constantly evolving, and society claims new solutions in response to changes to new paradigms. This paper aims to optimise the sizing of a self-consumption installation for collective self-consumption in a residential building under the Spanish regulatory framework. The study considers the current price volatility in the retail electricity Spanish market and focuses on the techno-economic analysis of self-consumption in a building consisting of 12 dwellings using photovoltaic energy and the possible support of a storage system. The three aspects analysed are the sizing of the self-consumption facility, the use of smart appliances to shift their consumption to more cost-effective times and the sharing of the renewable energy generated by the facility among the consumers participating in the collective self-consumption. This study employs two models, an average-day model and a whole-year model. The techno-economic analysis yields that between the two self-consumption modalities for residential consumption, the modality with surplus simplified compensation is more profitable than the one without surpluses. Finally, the study focuses on sharing the total renewable energy generated among the participants. The results indicate that both ex-ante and ex-post dynamic sharing brings few benefits.

A comparison of energy allocation rules for a collective self-consumption operation in an industrial multi-energy microgrid

With the widespread development of renewable energy sources, collective self-consumption (CSC) has been increasingly considered over recent years to sell the surplus of generated power to nearby consumers. However, appropriate energy allocation rules must be designed to efficiently share the energy among consumers. This paper aims to study two kinds of repartition keys for a CSC operation with multiple producers in the framework of an industrial multi-energy microgrid located in France. The default key considered in French regulations is compared to an optimized key based on the maximization of the income for the producers, in such a way as to maximize profitability by allocating the energy according to the consumers’ electricity purchase price. The simulation results show that a CSC with an optimized key decreases the total electricity bill by 11.7%. For some producers, a reduction in the payback period between 6 months and 5 years is observed, compared to the case without CSC. A sensitivity analysis on economic assumptions is also proposed. The results show that the grid use tariff exemption is a key lever and makes it possible to find a more profitable selling price for producers and consumers, and to significantly reduce the payback period for investors.

Using urban building energy modeling data to assess energy communities’ potential

The decentralized solar deployment will play a crucial role in the energy transition, especially in urban areas where high electricity consumption density is found. By implementing local generation systems, such as photovoltaic panels in buildings’ roofs, energy communities (EC) arise as an innovative and cooperative strategy to share these decentralized energy resources.This work develops a modeling framework to assess the potential of EC creation, by combining Urban Buildings Energy Modelling (UBEM) capabilities and building’s rooftops potential for solar generation. Hence, three EC case studies, with multiple building typologies, have been simulated and analyzed for three energy sharing scenarios: individual self-consumption outside an EC and collective self-consumption without and with a central battery storage, both inside an EC.The case study results demonstrate that self-sufficiency in buildings increases when going from individual self-consumption to collective self-consumption, having the best results when combining diverse demand profiles. Self-sufficiencies achieved at a community level range from 16% to 34%. Moreover, results show that when considering battery storage systems, self-sufficiency increases 16 percentual points, however decreasing the economic viability.By considering UBEM outputs the developed model allowed a valuable assessment of EC performance, constituting a valuable step in enhancing its implementation.

Sharing approaches in collective self-consumption systems: A techno-economic analysis of the Spanish regulatory framework

This paper proposes an analysis of the current regulatory framework for collective self-consumption in Spain. This regulatory framework proposes a model based on constant distribution coefficients for the allocation of self-consumed energy, as well as a constant distribution for the allocation of economic rights corresponding to surplus energy. The main advantage of this model is its simplicity and ease of implementation. Nonetheless, it has the disadvantage that part of the energy produced cannot be used (in economic terms) by the participants in the shared self-consumption system, which limits the economic potential of these facilities and therefore makes them less attractive to new investors. Therefore, this work proposes a techno-economic analysis of the influence of the current regulatory framework for collective self-consumption on the profitability of this type of projects. The analysis shows that, regardless of its simplicity of implementation, the existing scheme is not fully efficient, as part of the self-generated energy is not allocated to the community's consumption or surplus. This means that investors in the project obtain a profitability lower than the real potential of the installation. Furthermore, following the analysis carried out, an alternative distribution scheme is proposed that considerably improves the profitability of this type of projects.

Gardens in Rural Areas of Mid-Mountain in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Region: Revealing a Relationship to Food in Recomposition

Gardening and self-consumption practices face deep changes related to food transition in rural areas - the mountainous area Auvergne Rhône-Alpes region is no exception. Recent research about the role of gardens in daily consumption, mainly focuses on urban gardens. In this context, this paper aims to enlighten the role of gardens in food practices of the rural population living in intermediate areas of the mountain - the “mid-moutains”. It is based on research conducted as part of the Jardin’R project. We show that the garden is a gateway to individual and collective self-consumption practices in rural areas. Then we analyze the part these practices play in food policies conducted in our case studies. Finally, we show that reinvestment in self-consumption practices in rural mountains leads to their promotion as an element of the food heritage of these territories.

Photovoltaic systems and sustainable communities: New social models for ecological transition. The impact of incentive policies in profitability analyses

The issue of energy independence and sustainability are two major challenges in energy decision-making models. Prosumer development and sustainable community models are identified as drivers to achieve the ecological transition. This work proposes an economic analysis based on Net Present Value (NPV) also supported by the assessment of alternative scenarios (sensitivity, scenario and risk analysis). This study concerns a photovoltaic (PV) plant located in a mature market (Italy) under a collective self-consumption (CSC) scheme.The first aim is to assess the profitability of a PV plant by considering different political (tax deduction, subsidies) and market (purchase price, selling price) contexts. The results show significant economic returns with very modest levels of risk. The NPV varies in the range 2136–8084 €/kW in the baseline policy scenario and 1919–7868 €/kW in the alternative policy scenario, and thus the variations in NPV are more significant in the market scenarios than in the policy scenarios.The second aim seeks to propose how benefits among renewable self-consumers can be divided, and three scenarios are proposed for a CSC scheme: i) revenues split equally; ii) revenues shared entirely according to energy consumption profile and iii) revenues shared according to a partial energy consumption profile. The share of self-consumption plays a key role, but soaring energy costs also push prosumers to make a choice for the future and make their contribution to the development of a sustainable community.

Decarbonizing residential energy consumption under the Italian collective self-consumption regulation

The recent Italian regulatory framework is promoting Collective Self-Consumption to play a key role in the energy transition. In fact, this new scheme allows sharing and exchange of electricity produced from Renewable Energy Sources (RES) among different end-users living in the same multi-family building block. In this context, this paper aims to perform an energy, economic and environmental assessment of creating a RES-based energy community formed by end-users located in the same residential building, taking into account the currently available incentive schemes. In particular, two different progressive scenarios have been analysed: the first one includes only a photovoltaic system to supply the aggregated electricity demand of the apartments, while a heat pump is further integrated in the second scenario for supplying and electrifying/decarbonizing also the space heating demand of the building. Available temperature and solar irradiance datasets at national level were then used to spread the analysis to the whole country, at different latitudes. Although differences exist at regional levels for the proposed scenarios, the results highlight how the RES-based Collective Self-Consumption scheme is economically profitable for Italian residential end-users with cost savings up to 32% and environmentally sustainable with carbon emissions reduction up to 60%. • Economic, energy and environmental analysis of PV and HP for Italian households. • Energy modeling considering solar radiation and air temperature variability with GIS. • The results highlight how the economic and environmental perspectives are positive. • The new regulatory framework concerning energy sharing improve RES diffusion.

Photovoltaic Energy Production Forecasting in a Short Term Horizon: Comparison between Analytical and Machine Learning Models

The existing trend towards increased penetration of renewable energies in the traditional grid, and the intermittent nature of the weather conditions on which these energy sources depend, make the development of tools for the forecasting of renewable energy production more necessary than ever. Likewise, the prediction of the energy generated in these renewable production plants is key to the implementation of efficient Energy Management Systems (EMS) in buildings. These will aim both to increase the energy efficiency of the building itself, as well as to encourage self-consumption or, where appropriate, collective self-consumption (CSC). This paper presents a comparison between four different models, the former one being an analytical model and the remaining three machine learning (ML) based models. All of them will forecast the photovoltaic (PV) production curve for the next day. In order to validate these models, a case study of a PV system installed on the roof of a university building located in Bidart (France) is proposed. The model that most accurately forecasts the PV production during the period of July 2021 is the support vector regression (SVR), which has a mean R2 of 0.934 for July, being 0.97 on sunny days and 0.85 on cloudy ones. This is an improvement of 5.14%, 4.07%, and 4.18% over the nonlinear autoregressive with exogenous inputs (NARX), feedforward neural network (FFNN), and analytical model, respectively.