Economic analysis of energy communities: Investment options and cost allocation

Energy communities play an important role in the energy transition to future clean and sustainable energy. The economic feasibility of an energy community is largely affected by its investment options: either a third party or households themselves can invest in distributed energy resources. Another common problem for energy communities is cost...

Distributed energy resources for congestion management in the Dutch electricity system: An integrated perspective to improve current market-based redispatch

Rapid intake of intermittent generation units, more decentralised production and electrification of demand impose serious challenges on transmission- and distribution electricity grids. Part of this challenge is an increasing amount of congestion on the grids. The Dutch redispatch market for congestion management needs to be adapted to include...

Participation of active consumers in the electricity system: Design choices for consumer governance

Household electricity use has an increasing impact on the overall energy system. Numerous proposals have been made to support households to consume electricity in a system-friendlier manner. By breaking these proposals down into functions and how they are performed, this paper identifies four distinctive governance designs: energy communities,...

What is a good distribution network tariff?—Developing indicators for performance assessment: Developing indicators for performance assessment

The adoption of distributed energy resources such as PV cells, electric vehicles and batteries in electric grids is increasing steadily. This brings new challenges for distribution networks. The current network tariffs were not designed for these types of usage and, in many cases, they are not adequate anymore. Thus, many new tariff frameworks...

Cost allocation in integrated community energy systems - A review

Integrated community energy systems (ICESs) emerged in the reform of local energy systems during the energy transition. Cost allocation within an ICES is one of the key issues determining the success of ICESs. The costs should be allocated fairly among the members of a local energy community. However, not much research has been directed...

Assessment of daily cost of reactive power procurement by smart inverters

The reactive power control mechanisms at the smart inverters will affect the voltage profile, active power losses and the cost of reactive power procurement in a different way. Therefore, this paper presents an assessment of the cost–benefit relationship obtained by enabling nine different reactive power control mechanisms at the smart...

Distributed coordination of deferrable loads: A real-time market with self-fulfilling forecasts

Increased uptake of variable renewable generation and further electrification of energy demand necessitate efficient coordination of flexible demand resources to make most efficient use of power system assets. Flexible electrical loads are typically small, numerous, heterogeneous and owned by self-interested agents. Considering the multi...

Impact of Modelling Assumptions on the Voltage Stability Assessment of Active Distribution Grids

Renewable energy sources (RES) penetrate power grids at all voltage levels. A large number of RES units are connected to medium-voltage (MV) and low-voltage (LV) levels resulting in a significant share of overall generation. Therefore, the dynamic behavior of such distribution grids should be thoroughly examined. The goal of this paper is to...

Distributed energy resources and the organized balancing market: A symbiosis yet? Case of three European balancing markets

Thanks to new technological advancements and EU policy impulse, distributed energy resources (DER) are poised to become a viable alternative to conventional electricity generation for the provision of balancing services to transmission system operators. In this paper we show that the design variables that affect DER access to and...

Facilitating energy transition through energy commons: An application of socio-ecological systems framework for integrated community energy systems

Integrated Community Energy Systems (ICES) are an emerging local energy system focusing on the collective use of distributed energy resources (DER). These socio-technical systems (STSs) have a high potential to advance the transition towards socially inclusive, environmentally-friendly energy systems and to stimulate the local economy. While...

Trust, awareness, and independence: Insights from a socio-psychological factor analysis of citizen knowledge and participation in community energy systems

In order to decarbonize the energy sector, there is a widespread consensus that the role of end-users in the energy system should change from passive consumption to active prosumption and engagement. This is of particular importance as an increasing number of technologies and business models are focusing on the end-users. These developments...

Energy Management in Smart Cities

Models and simulators have been widely used in urban contexts for many decades. The drawback of most current models is that they are normally designed for specific objectives, so the elements considered are limited and they do not take into account the potential synergies between related systems. The necessity of a framework to model complex...

Evaluation methodology for tariff design under escalating penetrations of distributed energy resources

As the penetration of distributed energy resources (DERs) escalates in distribution networks, new network tariffs are needed to cope with this new situation. These tariffs should allocate network costs to users, promoting an efficient use of the distribution network. This paper proposes a methodology to evaluate and compare network tariff...

The distribution system operator as flexibility manager of distributed energy resources: A spreadsheet based simulation study on the case of the Netherlands

Within the Netherlands, house owners set up projects in which all houses within a neighbourhood are collectively renovated and equipped with distributed energy resources (DERs) at the same time. These projects are called ‘neighbourhood distributed energy resource projects’ (NDPs). As some of the equipped DERs electrify much of the heating...