Forecast-based Energy Management Systems

The high integration of distributed energy resources into the domestic level has led to an increase in the number of consumers becoming prosumers (producer + customer), which creates several challenges for network operators, such as controlling renewable energy sources over-generation. Recently, self-consumption as a new approach is encouraged by several countries to reduce the dependency on the national grid. This work presents two different Energy Management System (EMS) algorithms for a domestic Photovoltaic (PV) system: (a) real-time Fuzzy Logic-based EMS (FL-EMS) and (b) day-ahead Mixed Integer Linear Programming-based EMS (MILP-EMS). Both methods are tested using the data from the Active Office Building (AOB) located in Swansea University, Bay Campus, UK, as a case study to demonstrate the developed EMSs. AOB comprises a PV system and a Li-ion Battery Storage System (BSS) connected to the grid. The MILP-EMS is used to develop a Community Energy Management System (CEMS) to facilitate local energy exchange. CEMS is tested using the data from six houses located in London, UK, to form a community. Each household comprises a PV system and BSS connected to the grid. It is assumed that all six households use an EV and are equipped with a bidirectional charger to facilitate the Vehicle to House (V2H) mode. In addition, two shiftable appliances are considered to shift the demand to the times when PV generation is maximum to maximise community local consumption. MATLAB software is used to code the proposed systems. The FL-EMS exploits day-ahead energy forecast (assumed it is available from a third party) to control the BSS with the aim of reducing the net energy exchange with the grid by enhancing PV self-consumption. The FL-EMS determines the optimal settings for the BSS, taking into consideration the BSS's state of health to maximise its lifetime. The results are compared with recently published works to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The proposed FL-EMS saves 18% on total energy costs in six months compared to a similar system that utilises a day-ahead energy forecast. In addition, the method shows a considerable reduction in the net energy exchanged between the AOB and the grid. The main objective of the MILP-EMS is to reduce the net energy exchange with the grid by including a two days-ahead energy forecast in the optimisation process. The proposed method reduces the total operating costs (energy cost + BSS degradation cost) by up to 35% over six months and reduces net energy exchanged with the grid compared to similar energy optimisation technique. The proposed cost function in MILP-EMS shows that it can outperform the performance of alternative cost function that directly reduce the net energy exchange. CEMS uses two days-ahead energy forecast to reduce the net energy exchange with the grid by coordinating the distributed BSSs. The proposed CEMS reduces the total operating costs (energy costs + BSSs degradation costs) of the community by 7.6% when compared to the six houses being operated individually. In addition, the proposed CEMS enhances community self-consumption by reducing the net energy exchange with the grid by 25.3% over four months compared to similar community energy optimisation technique. A further reduction in operating costs is achieved using V2H mode and including shiftable appliances. Results show that introducing the V2H mode reduces both the total operating costs of the community and the net energy exchange with the grid

Investigation of Electric Vehicles Contributions in an Optimized Peer-to-Peer Energy Trading System

The rapid increase in integration of Electric Vehicles (EVs) and Renewable Energy Sources (RESs) at the consumption level poses many challenges for network operators. Recently, Peer-to-Peer (P2P) energy trading has been considered as an effective approach for managing RESs, EVs, and providing market solutions. This paper investigates the effect of EVs and shiftable loads on P2P energy trading with enhanced Vehicle to Home (V2H) mode, and proposes an optimized Energy Management Systems aimed to reduce the net energy exchange with the grid. Mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) is used to find optimal energy scheduling for smart houses in a community. Results show that the V2H mode reduces the overall energy costs of each prosumer by up to 23% compared to operating without V2H mode (i.e., EVs act as a load only). It also reduces the overall energy costs of the community by 15% compared to the houses operating without the V2H mode. Moreover, it reduces the absolute net energy exchanged between the community and the grid by 3%, which enhances the energy independence of the community