The Role of Energy Storage in the Design of Renewable Energy Communities

The work proposes an innovative method to design renewable energy communities (RECs) based on grid balance simulation with small time-scale resolution and assesses a comparison among different REC configurations in terms of load profile, photovoltaic (PV) area, and storage capacity. The study considers various mid-size RECs in southern Italy with the same annual electric energy consumption of 250 MWh. The investigation includes a sensitivity analysis aiming to determine the best size of energy storage. The results highlight the importance of a proper combination of load profile, PV area, and battery capacity to enhance the amount of renewable energy consumption. Small energy storage systems can improve prosumers’ self-consumption and enable them to share most of PV surplus, while battery packs with larger storage capacity do not significantly improve self-consumption and reduce the amount of renewable energy shared within the REC.