Energy storage systems management in Renewable Energy Communities

Across Europe, Renewable Energy Communities (RECs) are emerging as non-profit organizations composed of citizens, businesses, and public and private entities, participating as energy producers and consumers. These communities aim to generate environmental, social, and economic benefits for their members and the local territory, while actively contributing to the energy transition and addressing the challenges posed by climate change. European Union (EU) directives and national regulations underline the significant social role RECs are expected to play, while encouraging their involvement as key players in energy markets. REC members can produce, consume, store, and share energy, while also acting as aggregators, allowing them to buy and sell energy and energy services, thereby participating in energy and flexibility markets. In this evolving landscape, energy storage systems, particularly lithium-ion batteries and thermal storage coupled with heat pumps (HPs), are crucial for enhancing flexibility and efficiency. This thesis, structured as a collection of four articles, addresses the central question of how energy storage systems should be managed within RECs to maximize their potential. Through the Italian regulatory framework and several case studies, it explores new methodologies for managing batteries and HPs in RECs from both a technical and economic perspective. Crucially, the entire research adopts a paradigm shift from the individual prosumer viewpoint to a community perspective. In this context, the first article addresses the limitations of standard Battery Management Systems (BMS), which are designed solely for individual Self-Consumption (SC). To overcome this, it introduces a novel rule-based strategy for the centralized management of a fleet of batteries, designed to maximize Collective Self-Consumption (CSC) without penalizing individual SC, thereby aligning individual interests with the shared value of the REC. The second article applies the same logic to thermal energy storage systems coupled with HPs, focusing on load shifting to increase CSC. However, these initial studies highlighted two critical barriers: first, individual residential batteries currently suffer from high capital costs; second, simple rule-based strategies lead to suboptimal results and are unable to handle the complexity of multi-service stacking, limiting potential revenues. Driven by these challenges, the third article executes a strategic shift towards a shared asset model managed via optimization. Adopting a Linear Programming (LP) approach to assess a Community Battery, it demonstrates that aggregating capacity allows for economies of scale, while optimization unlocks the full economic potential of multi-service provision. Consequently, enabling Energy Arbitrage (EA) alongside CSC is proven to be crucial for economic viability, potentially halving the payback period. Yet, realizing these revenues requires the REC to operate in the market as a Balance Responsible Party (BRP), a role that entails managing forecast risks and grid imbalances. Addressing this challenge, the fourth article bridges the gap between simulation and reality by proposing and experimentally validating a robust two-layer control framework. This system enables the REC to manage forecast uncertainty and grid constraints, minimizing real-time dispatch errors. By proving the technical ability to act as a reliable BRP, this final study validates the feasibility of the economic scenarios analysed previously, ultimately providing a tool ready for real-world implementation.