Simulation of the Operation of Renewable Energy Communities Considering Storage Units and Different Levels of Access Tariffs Exemptions

Power systems are evolving very rapidly namely in what concerns the technologies used to generate electricity, the diversification of commercial relationships involving different agents and more specifically the empowerment of consumers. In this scope, several countries passed new legislation to induce the installation of Renewable Energy Communities, RECs, to induce new investments at a local level, to empower end consumers and to increase their self-sufficiency. However, the way Local Energy Markets, LEMs, will be integrated into Wholesale Markets, WSM, is not yet fully established. To this end, this paper proposes a design and an optimization model to increase the mentioned self-sufficiency level, to better manage the energy produced locally, also admitting the installation of battery storage units, and to profit as much as possible of them. LEM interaction with WSM, is based on an Agent Based Model architecture equipped with a Q-learning strategy. An economic assessment is also included, in order to get insights if some level of exemption, for instance associated with some components of the Access Tariffs, have to be considered in order to induce the massification of RECs.