Self-Consumption and Frequency Reserve Provision With Energy Communities

The increased concern for greener and more sustainable energy has prompted the wide development of local initiatives such as energy communities (EC) in which several users can be gathered to reach more efficient energy usage. This paper presents an optimization method to evaluate the benefits of an EC along two axes: 1) self-consumption of the local generation; and 2) remuneration from participation in the balancing market, especially for the manual frequency restoration of the tertiary reserve. In the proposed method, a compromise is built between the energy management strategy of the local EC and its flexibility contribution to grid services. In particular, we provide a framework to define reference profiles that allows assessing actual contribution in balancing services – i.e., upward/downward actions. A sensitivity study on two activation parameters for the reserve provision is also performed, namely duration and level of activation. Our results highlight the necessary trade-off to allow a profitable EC with a minimum bill and high balancing revenues. A case study of real EC located in the south of France shows that participating in the balancing market could result in 4.8–13.3% cost savings, depending on the balancing price scenarios, with most revenues coming from the upward regulation. With a 25% activation ratio and a participation time of only three hours per day, the obtained cost saving remains significant, at 9.5%.