Aggregator service for PV and battery energy storage systems of residential building

Distributed energy resources (DERs), including photovoltaic (PV) systems, small wind turbines, and energy storage systems (ESSs) are being increasingly installed in many residential units and the industry sector at large. DER installations in apartment buildings, however, pose a more complex issue particularly in the context of property ownership and the distribution of DR benefits. In this paper, a novel aggregator service is proposed to provide centralized management services for residents and DER asset owners in apartment buildings. The proposed service consists of a business model for billing and benefits distribution, and a model predictive control (MPC) control algorithm for managing and optimizing DER operations. Both physical and communication structures are proposed to ensure the implementation of such aggregator services for buildings. Three billing tariffs, i.e., flat rate, time-of-use (TOU), and real time pricing (RTP) are compared by way of case studies. The results indicate that the proposed aggregator service is compatible with the business model. It is shown to offer good performance in load shifting, bill savings, and energy trading of DERs. Overall, the aggregator service is expected to provide benefits in reducing the pay back periods of the investment.