Towards Renewable Energy Systems: A Design Framework for a Low Grid-Dependent Residential District

The transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy generation is imperative to limit global warming and meet international climate targets. However, energy production from uncertain and intermittent renewable sources results in various energy management challenges. In this research, we propose an efficient computational design framework for the conceptual design of the energy system of a residential district, which includes energy generation, storage, demand, and distribution on building and district levels. Our approach is demonstrated using a Dutch residential district (the Brainport Smart District; BSD) as a case study. The proposed computational design framework can be used to model and evaluate the performance of various energy systems configurations, such as the enhanced use of photovoltaic (PV) systems and energy storage devices. In this paper, we present the results for various generation and storage scenarios with the purpose of supporting decision-making.