Quantifying, Activating and Rewarding Flexibility in Renewable Energy Communities

Demand-side flexibility from renewable energy community members increases the benefits of local production and exchanges. To effectively harness this flexibility, end-users must be rewarded for their efforts regarding the shifted energy volumes and the associated discomfort. This work quantifies these last two quantities for three types of loads (electric vehicles, thermal loads and wet appliances). Then, a two-step model is proposed which first optimally activates the offered flexibility and then shares the benefits of this activation among the renewable energy community members through a rule-based or an optimization-based approach. Results show that the community framework can further increase the benefits brought by flexible demand.