On Optimal Management of Energy Storage Systems in Renewable Energy Communities

TL;DR

The paper addresses optimal storage operation within renewable energy communities (RECs) under an incentive scheme tied to virtual self-consumption. It develops a discrete-time linear program that aggregates member loads and renewable generation, coordinated by a central REC manager, and uses storage dynamics $S(t+1)=S(t)+\eta E^c(t)-\frac{1}{\eta}E^d(t)$ with $A^s(t)=\min\{L(t),G(t)\}$ and $\hat{J}=\sum_{\tau}( c^p L(\tau)-c^s G(\tau)-k A^s(\tau) )$. The authors derive necessary optimality conditions, show storages act as a single aggregated resource, and provide an explicit solution dependent on the threshold $\alpha=c^s\frac{1-\eta^2}{\eta^2}$. Numerical results demonstrate meaningful cost reductions and substantially higher self-consumption, validating the approach for both low and high renewable generation scenarios and informing practical deployment of REC storage solutions.

Abstract

Renewable energy communities are legal entities involving the association of citizens, organizations and local businesses aimed at contributing to the green energy transition and providing social, environmental and economic benefits to their members. This goal is pursued through the cooperative efforts of the community actors and by increasing the local energy self-consumption. In this paper, the optimal energy community operation in the presence of energy storage units is addressed. By exploiting the flexibility provided by the storage facilities, the main task is to minimize the community energy bill by taking advantage of incentives related to local self-consumption. Optimality conditions are derived, and an explicit optimal solution is devised. Numerical simulations are provided to assess the performance of the proposed solution.

Figures (9)

• Figure 1: Entity types in the considered community.
• Figure 2: Profile $\rho_u(t)$ (blue dashed) and the resulting profile $\rho_u'(t)$ (red) for a given prosumer $u\in\mathcal{U}_s$.
• Figure 3: Load (blue) and generation (red) profiles of the community entities.
• Figure 4: Load (blue) and generation (red) profiles at community level in case of low renewable generation.
• Figure 5: Storage level of charge (blue) and related charging (red) and discharging (yellow) control signals in case of low renewable generation.

Theorems & Definitions (16)

• Proposition 1
• proof
• Remark 1
• Proposition 2
• proof
• Remark 2
• Lemma 1
• proof
• Lemma 2
• proof