Assessment of the influence of renewable energy communities on future scenarios of the distribution grid

While the increasing usage of renewable energy resources is necessary, the unreliablity of these resources will have a negative impact on the energy grid. By creating financial incentives for their members renewable energy communities (RECs) may assist by consuming excess energy locally and thereby maintaining local energy balance. In this paper, the influence of renewable energy communities on the distribution grid is studied and quantified for nine different future scenarios in Austria. This is done by simulation of these nine RECs over one year. The focus is laid on photovoltaic (PV) production and the quantification of self-consumption and consumption within the REC throughout the year using dynamic partitioning. This quantification provides valuable information for the planning of a good composition of a REC, an intuitive assessment of the expected effects and a simple first estimate of suitable overall community battery sizes.