Resilient prosumer scenario in a changing regulatory environment – the unircon solution

Technological developments are pushing for new solutions towards massive integration of renewable-based electricity generation in networks already facing many challenges. The paper presents a new approach for managing the energy transfer towards prosumers making use of a smart management of the local energy storage. The proposed grid design (including storage dimensioning procedure) is based on several operation scenarios in which the prosumer is operating as a “load only” entity (from grid perspective) exhibiting self-resilience and higher energy efficiency. One of the major advantages of this restriction in prosumer operation is the preservation of resilience against changing regulatory environment. This can be realized within a newly proposed Uni-directional Resilient Consumer (UniRCon) architecture. For the proof of concept three use-cases are detailed: (i) PV installations connected behind the meter, (ii) PV and storage available and controllable behind the meter and (iii) the UniRCon architecture. The three use-cases are then compared and assessed for four near-future timelines as starting points for the investment. The numerical simulations show the attractiveness of the UniRCon solution in what concerns both system operation costs and self-resilience. Savings are expressed as opportunity savings arising from difference in tariffs while charging and discharging the storage unit and due to avoidance of curtailment as well as special taxes for connection of PV (depending of regulatory environment).  An extension of UniRCon concept is presented also at community scale, with neighbourhood energy exchange inside a cluster envisions energy supply resilience at community scale.