Regional Differences in Configurations of Energy Communities: Future Scenarios and Policy Implications

Local energy communities can enable end customers to increase the use of renewable energy through sharing, trading and joint investments. These energy communities will have an impact on load flows and grid utilization. However, it is challenging to predict the configurations of energy communities that will be present in future power systems. This paper presents simulation models for distributed generation, storage and consumption technologies in energy communities. An agent-based energy market is implemented to consider effects of local energy sharing. Different heuristic control scenarios are considered to investigates the effects of demand response in energy communities. The simulation is coupled with a Mixed Integer Linear Programming optimization of the energy resource sizing problem. The presented sizing approach is applied in a case study of six realistic energy communities in Austria. Policy implications on local generation and storage capacities are investigated in a multitude of scenarios.