João Mello

Abstract

Abstract
This paper proposes a three-stage model for managing energy communities for local energy sharing and providing grid flexibility services to tackle local distribution grid constraints. The first stage addresses the minimization of each prosumer’s individual energy bill by optimizing the schedules of their flexible resources. The second stage optimizes the energy bill of the whole energy community by sharing the prosumers’ energy surplus internally and re-dispatching their batteries, while guaranteeing that each prosumer’s new energy bill is always be equal to or less than the bill that results for this prosumer from stage one. This collective optimization is designed to ensure an additional collective benefit, without loss for any community member. The third stage, which can be performed by the distribution system operator (DSO), aims to solve the local grid constraints by re-dispatching the flexible resources and, if still necessary, by curtailing local generation or consumption. Stage three minimizes the impact on the schedule obtained at previous stages by minimizing the loss of profit or utility for all prosumers, which are furthermore financially compensated accordingly. This paper describes how the settlement should be performed, including the allocation coefficients to be sent to the DSO to determine the self-consumed and supplied energies of each peer. Finally, some case studies allow an assessment of the performance of the proposed methodology. Results show, among other things, the potential benefits of allowing the allocation coefficients to take negative values to increase the retail market competition; the importance of stage one or, alternatively, the need for a fair internal price to avoid unfair collective benefit sharing among the community members; or how stage three can effectively contribute to grid constraint solving, profiting first from the existing flexible resources.

Abstract

Abstract
Building renewable energy communities (REC) involves investments on generation facilities (such as PV panels), technologies to provide flexibility (such as batteries), management platforms and ICT systems, as well as integrating other flexibility sources such as thermal storage or electric vehicles. The way investments are made by the REC's members and other third parties is in close relationship with the governance models of the REC in terms of energy, flexibility and costs and benefits sharing, which, in the end, constitute the overall REC's business model. This works provides a revision of the main financing mechanisms to invest on and build a REC, and of the associated governance and business models that result from the investments mechanisms selected and its implications on its day by day operation. © 2022 IEEE.

Abstract
Final consumers can be organized in collective self-consumption structures and energy communities to share and trade among them the energy they produce locally and can also be potential providers of flexibility services to the grid. However, the integration of local and wholesale electricity markets is still a matter of development, demanding innovative solutions that consider, among other things, the impact of the energy transfers from the activated flexibility on the balancing responsible parties' portfolio in the context of the wholesale settlement rules. This work proposes an innovative design for the integration of local energy markets and local flexibility markets based on the current collective selfconsumption regulation in Portugal. The main roles and contractual framework are defined and the energy transfer of activated flexibility between aggregators and retailers is tackled using regular LEM energy transfers.