Grid-aware demand response in energy communities

To tackle climate change, large amounts of distributed renewable power generation capacities will be installed over the coming years. At the same time, the electrification of the mobility and heating sectors will increase the amount of flexible loads connected to power grids. Energy communities can promote an increased consumption of locally generated renewable power by providing price incentives for community participants. Therefore, energy communities could help reduce the strain on distribution grids from increased distributed power generation and further electrification of energy consumption. We present a co-simulation approach for energy communities and respective grid infrastructure. Employing this co-simulation approach we evaluate different heuristic control algorithms and their effect on the power distribution grid. Communicating grid congestion to community members can help reduce negative effects on power grids. In the realistic scenarios we present, the flexibility offered by energy communities is not sufficient to avert negative effects completely.