Comparison between Multistage Stochastic Optimization Programming and Monte Carlo Simulations for the Operation of Local Energy Systems

The paper deals with the day-ahead optimization of the operation of a local energy system consisting of photovoltaic units, energy storage systems and loads aimed to minimize the electricity procurement cost. The local energy system may refer either to a small industrial site or to a residential neighborhood. Two mixed integer linear programming models are adopted, each for a different representation of the battery: A simple energy balance constraint and the Kinetic Battery Model. The paper describes the generation of the scenarios, the construction of the scenario tree and the intraday decision-making procedure based on the solution of the multistage stochastic programming. Moreover, the daily energy procurement costs calculated by using the stochastic programming approach are compared with those calculated by using the Monte Carlo method. The comparison is repeated for two different sizes of the battery and for two load profiles

Procurement Cost Minimization of an Energy Community with Biogas, Photovoltaic and Storage Units

The paper presents a day-ahead scheduling procedure of a local energy community (LEC) that includes one or more producers equipped with a biogas power plant. The other participants may own photovoltaic units, battery energy systems (BESs), and loads. The aim of the scheduling, which essentially concerns biogas units and BESs, is the minimization of the daily energy procurement cost of the LEC, including the fuel cost. The scheduling procedure also provides the prices of the internal transactions. In particular, the paper shows the impact of the biogas power production and analyzes how it affects the prices of the transactions between the LEC participants. Several case studies are presented, characterized by different scenarios of LEC self-consumption, number of dispatchable units, and fuel consumption. Both a centralized and a distributed optimization model, based on the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM), have been implemented and compared