Integration Of Prosumers Research Articles

Decentralized AIoT based intelligence for sustainable energy prosumption in local energy communities: A citizen-centric prosumer approach

The role of prosumers who are consumers who produce, store, and consume energy is vital to the uptake of renewable energies in Local Energy Communities (LEC). However, the integration of prosumers in the smart grid to facilitate bidirectional flows of energy and information depends on intelligent operations of energy systems and flexible structures of the existing energy markets. But existing energy trading mechanisms are faced with issues of trust, privacy, security, and energy pricing determination. Also, there are fewer studies based on a citizen-centric prosumer approach. Thus, there is need to provide reliable solutions that addresses the aforementioned challenges faced by prosumers in LEC. Advancements in disruptive technologies, such as Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and the Internet of Things (IoT) have transformed a broad spectrum of intelligent systems in smart cities. Therefore, this study examines the integration of AI and IoT as AIoT and DLT towards a citizen-centric prosumer approach for decentralized energy markets trading. Additionally, this article develops an architectural model for energy prosumption in LEC using design science approach based on a user-centred design method that shows a possible implementation concept to support energy sharing and trading in LEC. The architectural model supports trust, data privacy, security, and energy pricing determination using AI and smart contracts to provides real-time energy trading monitoring, easy access, control, and immutable logs to unearth underlying energy demand and supply patterns thereby supporting citizen-centric prosumer approach. Finally, a use case scenario of DLT and AIoT for prosumption operations is presented.

Mutual-benefit of district heating market and network operation for prosumers integration

ABSTRACT Integration of prosumers in district heating networks brings new challenges to the market and the network operation since they can change the thermal flow and increase competition. Thus, it is mandatory to develop new market structures and network management mechanisms. In this scope, this work proposes the implementation of a coordination methodology based on a peer-to-peer market without a supervising entity. The goal is to achieve higher revenue by coping with the requirements of each agent. Furthermore, the model is validated through network nodal analysis inspired by the power sector. The results in a Nordic network point out that the coordination methodology can provide compromise solutions between market negotiation and network operation. This methodology succeeded in providing reliable network solutions, fixing 99.88% of network burdens just after one iteration, and encouraging prosumers’ integration. This increases market competition which lowers the energy costs for consumers while avoiding the network’s operating burdens.

Empowering Prosumer Communities in Smart Grid with Wireless Communications and Federated Edge Learning

The exponential growth of distributed energy resources is enabling the transformation of traditional consumers in the smart grid into prosumers. Such transition presents a promising opportunity for sustainable energy trading. Yet, the integration of prosumers in the energy market imposes new considerations in designing unified and sustainable frameworks for efficient use of the power and communication infrastructure. Furthermore, several issues need to be tackled to adequately promote the adoption of decentralized renewable-oriented systems, such as communication overhead, data privacy, scalability, and sustainability. In this article, we present the different aspects and challenges to be addressed for building efficient energy trading markets in relation to communication and smart decision-making. Accordingly, we propose a multi-level pro-decision framework for prosumer communities to achieve collective goals. Since the individual decisions of prosumers are mainly driven by individual self-sufficiency goals, the framework prioritizes the individual prosumers' decisions and relies on the 5G wireless network for fast coordination among community members. In fact, each prosumer predicts energy production and consumption to make proactive trading decisions as a response to collective-level requests. Moreover, the collaboration of the community is further extended by including the collaborative training of prediction models using Federated Learning, assisted by edge servers and prosumer home-area equipment. In addition to preserving prosumers' privacy, we show through evaluations that training prediction models using Federated Learning yields high accuracy for different energy resources while reducing the communication overhead.

Integration of Prosumers with Battery Storage and Electric Vehicles Via Transactive Energy

This paper presents a novel transactive energy approach that uses the utility's distributed energy management system, the home energy management systems in the residential customers and the existing inter-communication infrastructure to: 1) enable the electric utilities to identify the negative impacts of integrating local distributed energy resources (such as rooftop solar photovoltaic) and electric vehicles; 2) provide voltage support, transformer management and phase balancing to mitigate such impacts (utilities’ objectives); and 3) create a day-ahead local energy market whose participants are the homeowners with home battery storage. In this market, the homeowners compete among each other through a dynamic Bertrand game to maximize their payoffs (customer's preferences). The results have demonstrated the capability of the proposed transactive energy approach to resolve the conflicting objectives between the utility and the customers by improving the service voltage, extending the lifetime of the transformers, and reducing the voltage unbalance, while increasing the profits for the homeowners through the energy arbitrage without sacrificing the homeowner's convenience.

Multiagent Simulation of Demand Flexibility Integration in Local Energy Markets

Overcoming the issues associated with the variability of renewable generation has become a constant challenge in power and energy systems. The use of load flexibility is one of the most promising ways to face it. Suitable ways to incorporate flexibility in the electricity market, in addition to the already challenging integration of distributed generation primary sources, are therefore crucial. The integration of prosumers and consumers flexibility in the market is, however, not straightforward, as current wholesale and retail market structures are not prepared to deal with the current and future needs of the system. Several models for local energy markets have been studied and experimented; but there it is still not clear what is the most efficient way to integrate the dynamic participation of demand flexibility in this type of local markets.

Prosumer integration in wholesale electricity markets: Synergies of peer-to-peer trade and residential storage

In the energy strategy of the European Union, the end-user is envisioned as a key participant in the future electricity market (European Commission, [16]). Current market designs and business models lack incentives and opportunities for regular electricity consumers (e.g. residential buildings) to become prosumers and actively participate in the market. Incentives should include economic and behavioural motivation beyond subsidised flat feed-in tariffs. Opportunities should allow for active participation of prosumers with relatively modest generation volumes but significant flexibility. In this paper, we propose a framework to integrate prosumer communities into the existing day-ahead and intraday markets. Using a two-stage stochastic programming approach, we incorporate the sequenced decision-making in the wholesale system under uncertainty of renewable generation and spot prices. We focus on the value of peer-to-peer (P2P) trading in the integration of prosumers in the day-ahead and intraday markets and investigate how residential battery storage contributes to local demand side flexibility in an integrated market setting. To this end, we introduce the Smart elecTricity Exchange Platform (STEP) that represents the interface between the wholesale electricity markets and the prosumer communities, and coordinates the community’s operational supply-demand decisions. A study on residential buildings in London show that both P2P trade and battery storage by themselves each induce a reduction of electricity bills by 20%–30%. Combined, P2P trade and battery storage may lead to savings of almost 60%. In other words, we find that peer-to-peer trade and flexibility options such as local storage generate higher levels of the community’s self-sufficiency.

Energy cost saving strategies in distributed power networks

In this paper we study energy cost saving strategies in power networks in presence of prosumers. Three tips are considered: (i) distributed power network architecture, (ii) peak energy shaving with the integration of prosumers’ contribution, (iii) Electric vehicles self-charging by means of prosumers’ production. The proposed distributed power network architecture reduces significantly the transmission costs and can reduce significantly the global energy cost up to 42 percent. Different types of prosumer who use self-charging photovoltaic systems, are able to intelligently buy energy from, or sell it, to the power grid. Therein, prosumers interact in a distributed environment during the purchase or sale of electric power using a double auction with negotiation mechanism. Using a two-step combined learning and optimization scheme, each prosumer can learn its optimal bidding strategy and forecast its energy production, consumption and storage. Our simulation results, conducted for the region of Sicily in Italy, show that the integration of prosumers can reduce peak hour costs up to 19 percent and 6 percent for eligible prosumers with electric vehicles.