Optimizing Electricity Sharing from Generation and Storage within District-based Renewable Energy Communities

This paper presents an integrated optimisation framework for coordinating photovoltaic generation and centralised battery storage within district-based Renewable Energy Communities (RECs). Developed within the Horizon Europe DEDALUS project, the proposed approach addresses the challenge of jointly managing shared renewable generation and energy storage to maximise community self-consumption while reducing electricity procurement costs. By coordinating multiple shared assets within a single optimisation process, the framework supports more efficient and equitable operation of community energy systems.

The proposed framework simultaneously determines electricity sharing factors and a preliminary battery operating strategy using a lightweight linear programming formulation. The optimisation incorporates community-wide electricity demand, photovoltaic generation, battery operating constraints and electricity market prices, while introducing an allocation constraint that distributes available renewable energy more evenly among participants. The methodology is designed to comply with regulatory frameworks requiring energy-sharing coefficients to be defined in advance, enabling practical implementation without relying on computationally intensive optimisation techniques.

The approach is validated using real operational data from a Renewable Energy Community comprising twelve residential dwellings, a shared photovoltaic installation and a centralised battery system. The results demonstrate that integrated optimisation improves the utilisation of both generation and storage assets, enhances self-consumption and exploits weekly electricity price variations to increase the overall economic performance of the community. The proposed framework provides a scalable and computationally efficient solution for the coordinated management of shared energy resources in future district-scale Renewable Energy Communities.