Multi-objective planning method for renewable energy communities with economic, environmental and social goals

In this paper we propose an innovative multi-objective methodology to optimally size and operate an Energy Community under social, environmental, and economic considerations, where both user preferences demand side management have been incorporated to manage flexibility that can be provided by appliances and Electric Vehicles using a Mixed-Integer Linear Programming model. The problem is efficiently decomposed using the A-AUGMECON2 technique that has confirmed its efficiency for an Italian case study. Results show that Renewable Energy Communities enable significant savings even beyond 10%–20% while keeping adequate level of user satisfaction, especially when grid prices are high. Demand response and demand side management confirmed to play a relevant role to achieve higher self sufficiency, economic, and social goals, in agreement to the energy transition targets.