Optimal Operation of Renewable Energy Communities Through Battery Energy Systems: A Field Data-Driven Real-Time Simulation Study

The development of an advanced Energy Management System (EMS) able to collect power or energy measurements from remote sensors or smart meters and to provide power setpoint to the battery energy systems is a key element for the optimal operation of a Renewable Energy Community (REC). The proposed EMS is able to minimize the energy procurement cost of the community as well as maximizing the energy shared among the REC members, taking into account the one having renewable origin only, as batteries can be charged also from the external grid. The optimization procedure is developed on the basis of a rolling-horizon approach that allows taking advantage of the updated forecasts of PV generation and load demand, controlling the batteries setpoint according to the current operational conditions of the community resources. The paper presents the results obtained for a set up in which the EMS is interfaced with a real-time simulator and uses current and/or past data coming from devices capable of smart meter reading and from non-intrusive load monitoring devices installed in an urban district. The proposed approach is tested in two settings: in the first, the simulator represents a battery storage unit while meters data are coming from real prosumers/consumers devices; in the second, the simulator, in addition to the battery storage unit, represents also a virtual REC along with its meters. The method is useful for planning purposes and to evaluate different scenarios.