Operation Optimization of Multiple Distributed Energy Systems in an Energy Community

In recent years, energy communities have attracted growing interest as an efficient paradigm to exploit local energy sources to satisfy local multi-energy demand. Within an energy community, multiple distributed energy systems (DESs) connected through local grid and heating network need to be coordinated in a cost-effective way, while accounting for environmental impacts. However, most of work in the literature and our previous work focused on optimal operation of individual DESs. This paper focuses on operation optimization of multiple DESs in an energy community. The problem is to commit and dispatch energy devices in DESs to minimize the net daily energy and CO2 emission cost, while satisfying the user demand. It is challenging since the energy devices and energy processes are coupled within and among DESs through local grid and heating network with thermal losses. A mixed-integer linear programming problem is formulated, and it is solved by using branch-and-cut. In numerical testing, an energy community with different types of utility customers is considered. Results show that integrated management of the DESs is efficient for reduction of the total net daily energy and CO2 emission cost of the community as compared to other operations modes without interconnections among DESs.