Increasing self-consumption of renewable energy through the Building to Vehicle to Building approach applied to multiple users connected in a virtual micro-grid

This paper focuses on a novel energy management approach, namely Building to Vehicle to Building, in which electric vehicles act as vector devices for renewable energy exchanges among buildings. The main goal behind this concept is to benefit from the potentiality of electric vehicles toward the achievement of the zero-energy target extended to a buildings cluster level, by exploiting renewable generation on- and off-site. To this aim, a dynamic simulation tool is developed to assess the energy and economic performance of the proposed V2B2 scheme applied to a cluster of multiple users made of non-residential buildings and electric vehicles with bidirectional charging, used as a back-up power supply for increasing self-consumption of energy produced on-site by PV panels integrated in one of the buildings, to be also exploited off-site by other users. A case study analysis is conducted for a sample cluster of 3 building sand 3 electric vehicles, located in a Mediterranean city (Naples, Italy) with the aim at conducting the proof of concept. Simulation results show that the proposed V2B2 scheme enhances the match between the on-site renewable generation and the whole system demand, i.e. buildings and electric vehicles’ needs, by reducing the grid operation and boosting the system economic convenience. The proposed energy management scheme represents an example of novel aggregator energy and business model which will play a crucial role in the next generation of smart cities and communities.