An Optimization Based Community Model of Consumers and Prosumers: A Real-Time Simulation and Emulation Approach

Abstract

The electricity consumption pattern is being increased day by day. Currently, network operators are moving towards renewable energy resources and applying demand response programs. However, the small and medium scale consumers and producers are needed to be aggregated and participate in the electricity markets as a unique resource. This paper proposes an optimization-based community model for aggregating the small scales consumers and producers. The model includes a central controller, which is considered as an aggregator, and several local community managers to keep the network balanced locally. Furthermore. real-time simulation approach and several real devices as hardware-in-the-loop are used to validate the system under practical challenges. The results of the paper reveal a gap between the simulation and experimental results and prove the performance of system in real-time mode using actual devices.