Community Battery System Sizing to Maximize Financial Returns to the Prosumers in PV-Rich Neighborhood

This paper proposes a comprehensive framework that combines critical technological and economic elements to optimise the capacity and performance of the battery owned by prosumers. The aim is to maximize their financial gains over the lifespan of the battery. Monte Carlo simulations were utilized to generate random photovoltaic (PV) production data mimicking real-life stochastic nature of solar power for an uncertainty analysis of the system. The suggested model is evaluated under three distinct cases: Prosumers-owned community battery (CB), individual home batteries, and a novel scheme of integrating an additional large consumer load. The defined objective function is maximized using Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), taking into account the specified constraints. The simulation results demonstrate the substantial economic advantage provided by CB integration over individual home-batteries. The incorporation of larger customers, such as commercial entities seeking a reduction in their carbon footprint, resulted in a further augmented net present value (NPV) and economic return per kWh.