Optimal operation of renewable energy communities under demand response programs

Within the context of renewable energy communities, this paper focuses on optimal operation of producers equipped with energy storage systems in the presence of demand response. A novel strategy for optimal scheduling of the storage systems of the community members under price-volume demand response programs, is devised. The underlying optimization problem is designed as a low-complexity mixed-integer linear program that scales well with the community size. An algorithm for redistributing the demand response rewards corresponding to the optimal solution is also developed in order to guarantee fairness among participants. The proposed approach is evaluated using two different objective functions through extensive numerical simulations. In all cases, economic benefits are demonstrated for producers that participate in a community rather than operating independently. • Price-volume demand response (DR) in renewable energy communities (REC) is addressed. • Optimal operation of producers equipped with energy storage systems is designed. • Advantage for producers in joining a REC w.r.t. autonomous operation is demonstrated. • A fairness-oriented strategy for DR reward distribution among producers is devised.