Comparative Analysis of Power Distribution Systems with Individual Prosumers Owing Photovoltaic Installations and Solar Energy Communities in Terms of Profitability and Hosting Capacity

Illia Diahovchenko () and Lubov Petrichenko
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Illia Diahovchenko: Electric Power Engineering Department, Sumy State University Sumy, 40007 Sumy, Ukraine
Lubov Petrichenko: Institute of Power Engineering, Faculty of Electrical and Environmental Engineering, Riga Technical University, LV-1048 Riga, Latvia

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 23, 1-20

Abstract: Future energy markets are foreseen to integrate multiple entities located mainly at the distribution level of the grid so that consumers can participate in energy trading while acting as individual prosumers or by forming energy communities. To ensure the smooth integration of prosumers and satisfy the effective operation of the power distribution systems (PDSs), it is important to fundamentally assess their performance for different grid development scenarios. This paper aims to estimate and compare the hosting capacity (HC) thresholds and profitability for two alternatives: (a) when the PDS experiences rapid growth of scattered individual prosumers with photovoltaic (PV) installations and (b) when prosumers intend to formulate a medium-scale energy community, which is a single source located in one node. Maximization of the profits of decision-makers and maximization of the capacity of the PV generation were set as the two objectives for the optimization tasks. It has been analyzed how the physical topology of the distribution network can be harmonized with the underlying bidirectional power flows for each alternative while satisfying system constraints. A typical distribution test feeder is employed to estimate the energy loss and voltage variations in the PDS, as well as the profitability for energy producers, for various penetration levels of prosumers, in comparison to the base case with no PV generation. The results indicate that improvements in terms of profitability and reduction of energy losses can be achieved in both alternatives, as long as the penetration of PV systems does not reach a certain threshold, which can be chosen by decision-makers and is limited by the HC. Comparing the results of the simulation, EComs demonstrate higher HC vs. individual prosumers, both in terms of technical and economic priorities.

Keywords: hosting capacity; energy losses; prosumer; energy community; photovoltaic installation; distributed generation; profitability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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