Local Peer-to-Peer Energy Trading Evaluation in Micro-Grids with Centralized Approach

Due to the global concern about the carbon foot-print on the environment and climate change, emerging renew-able energy resources play an undeniable role in the formation of local energy systems. In the new energy market, earning more money creates a propensity for the producers to sell the excess energy to consumers at a higher price. Also, consumers try to meet their demands at a lower price. Local markets have an excellent potential to minimize the customers' costs, increase efficiency and decrease Greenhouse Gases (GHGS). This paper presents a novel dispatch model for local energy systems to facilitate energy trading among different participants in communities/neighborhoods. Peer-to-Peer (P2P) energy trading is used as a novel system operation model where peers can generate their energy from conventional or renewable energy resources (RES) and transact energy to the other peers. Likewise, consumers can choose the primary grid or other energy resources, which may have a lower cost. By decreasing the influence of the grid in energy transmission, energy efficiency increases by reducing the power losses on the transmission line. Furthermore, using RES and loss reduction causes CO2 emission reduction. The applicability of this idea is tested in a local area with six participants considering the overall system cost minimization.