Integrated Planning of a Solar/Storage Collective

TL;DR

This paper develops an integrated framework for planning and operating a solar and storage collective, optimizing long-term benefits and real-time energy allocation under French regulation.

Contribution

It introduces a combined long-term planning and model predictive control approach for energy sharing in solar/storage collectives, considering regulatory and uncertainty factors.

Findings

Optimized energy allocation improves collective welfare.

The framework effectively manages short-term operational costs.

Case study demonstrates practical applicability for 15 consumers.

Abstract

French regulation allows consumers in low-voltage networks to form collectives to produce, share, and consume local energy under the collective self-consumption framework. A natural consequence of collectively-owned generation projects is the need to allocate production among consumers. In long-term plans, production allocation determines each of the consumers' benefits of joining the collective. In the short-term, energy should be dynamically allocated to reflect operation. This paper presents a framework that integrates long and short-term planning of a collective that shares a solar plus energy storage system. In the long-term planning stage, we maximize the collective's welfare and equitably allocate expected energy to each consumer. For operation, we propose a model predictive control algorithm that minimizes short-term costs and allocates energy to each consumer on a 30-minute basis (as required by French regulation). We adjust the energy allotment ex-post operation to reflect the materialization of uncertainty. We present a case study where we showcase the framework for a 15 consumer collective.