Real-Time optimal scheduling for prosumers resilient to regulatory changes

The last decade marked an exponential increase in photovoltaic (PV) systems installed on the rooftop of domestic residences within Europe. This situation was basically favored by generous financial schemes such as Feed-in-Tariff and the market of green certificates. However, such governmental incentives drastically reduced, or they were already replaced with net-metering schemes which favor different scenarios: increase of self-consumption and decrease of grid-back injections. This unstable regulatory environment puts both new and old owners of PV systems under a regulatory financial risk. Recently, a regulatory resilient architecture, called UniRCon, was proposed, to overcome both financial and technical regulation uncertainties, where local battery energy storage system plays a key role. Besides the architecture we propose a real-time energy management system (EMS) that could be used for the daily operation of such systems. The real-time EMS is needed to prove the feasibility of this solution in short and long run and it could be also used as the main subroutine in the financial risk analysis. The EMS is based on a mixed-integer linear programming energy management tool that considers possible arbitrage benefits due to price difference in the energy purchased from the grid, while explicitly considering the efficiency of the power electronic interfaces (converters) according to the operation point. We prove our approach using a lab-scale experimental setup of a DC residential microgrid. The results are analyzed under realistic operation scenarios derived from one-year load and PV power output measurements

The role of off-board EV battery chargers in smart homes and smart grids: operation with renewables and energy storage systems

Concerns about climate changes and environmental air pollution are leading to the adoption of new technologies for transportation, mainly based on vehicle electrification and the interaction with smart grids, and also with the introduction of renewable energy sources (RES) accompanied by energy storage systems (ESS). For these three fundamental pillars, new power electronics technologies are emerging to transform the electrical power grid, targeting a flexible and collaborative operation. As a distinctive factor, the vehicle electrification has stimulated the presence of new technologies in terms of power management, both for smart homes and smart grids. As the title indicates, this book chapter focuses on the role of off-board EV battery chargers in terms of operation modes and contextualization for smart homes and smart grids in terms of opportunities. Based on a review of on-board and off-board EV battery charging systems (EV-BCS), this chapter focus on the off-board EV-BCS framed with RES and ESS as a dominant system in future smart homes. Contextualizing these aspects, three distinct cases are considered: (1) An ac smart home using separate power converters, according to the considered technologies; (2) A hybrid ac and dc smart home with an off-board EV-BCS interfacing RES and ESS, and with the electrical appliances plugged-in to the ac power grid; (3) A dc smart home using a unified 2 off-board EV-BCS with a single interface for the electrical power grid, and with multiple dc interfaces (RES, ESS, and electrical appliances). The results for each case are obtained in terms of efficiency and power quality, demonstrating that the off-board EV-BCS, as a unified structure for smart homes, presents better results. Besides, the off-board EV-BCS can also be used as an important asset for the smart grid, even when the EV is not plugged-in at the smart home.(undefined