Pricing Strategies for Local Transactions in Renewable Energy Communities Business Models

The business models (BM) for renewable energy communities (REC) are often based on their promoters being the sole or primary investors in energy assets, such as photovoltaic panels (PV) and battery energy storage systems (BESS), operating these assets centrally, and selling the locally produced energy to the REC members. This research addresses the computation of fixed local energy prices that the REC developer may apply under the optimal operation of the energy assets to maximize its revenues, while guaranteeing that all REC members benefit from belonging to the REC. We do this from two perspectives, depending on who operates the storage systems: i) maximizing the investor's benefits and ii) minimizing the REC cost by maximizing its self-consumption, ensuring maximization of the energy sold by the REC promoter/investor. The optimization framework includes energy production and demand balance constraints, peak load limitations, and constraints coming from the Portuguese regulatory framework. It also considers the opportunity costs of the members for buying the energy deficit from the grid or selling the energy surplus to the grid.