Harvesting Distributed Flexibility Assets Contributions to Energy Communities: An MILP Formulation

Flexiblility is crucially important in energy systems, especially the net zero one, having a number of renewable energy resources (RESs). Building prosumers and energy hubs (EHs) enable flexible energy management in multi-carrier energy systems (MCESs). Smart building prosumers can self-supply electricity and export excess energy to the grid. Residential energy infrastructure can be repurposed into smart home nano energy hub (SHNAEH) to create flexible and cost-effective smart city energy systems (SCESs). This paper proposes an optimal 24-hour operationally induced planning framework for SHNAEHs in SCESs to enhance system flexibility. The effectiveness of the proposed mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model is demonstrated through implementation in five scenarios, analyzing the impact of using the harvested distributed flexibility assets on total system flexibility and cost. The energy-flexible SHNAEH indices and energy trading behavior are utilized to evaluate impact of the proposed methodology on net zero energy communities (NZECs). The numerical results demonstrate the potential of the proposed approach to improve system flexibility and reduce investment costs, thus providing valuable insights for future flexible SCESs.