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Special Issue Editors

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The energy transition process requires a structural change in the energy markets and in the electrical systems, in order to include more players and increase the penetration of renewable energy sources, increasing efficiency and maintain system security.

Local electricity markets (energy markets, balancing markets, or single markets) see the presence of several agents whose roles must be redesigned considering market forces. Distribution system operators are managing grids where multiple agents produce and consume energy; small and medium agents shall be allowed to participate to the market and new agents can decide to invest in production (or in aggregation). Among new market agents, energy communities are new associations of consumers and prosumers for a more inclusive energy market. To fully exploit the potential of such new actors from both technical and economic standpoints, market and management frameworks should address their inclusion within the power system with clear rules and procedures.

Policy targets need evaluation tools, test models, and operational guidelines that ensure that objectives are achieved efficiently and fairly.

Topics of interest for publication in this Special Issue include but are not limited to:

Design of electricity markets;
New players in the energy markets;
Business models for aggregators;
The role of DSOs in future energy markets;
Investment evaluation in new energy markets;
Policy evaluation in the energy sector;
Impact of renewable production on electricity markets;
Efficiency in energy systems;
TSO-DSO coordination schemes;
Flexibility market impact on distribution system management;

Control frameworks for local energy aggregators.

Dr. Marina Bertolini
Dr. Massimiliano Coppo
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Energies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

local electricity markets
renewable integration
balancing markets
energy communities
cost–benefit analysis for energy projects
energy aggregators.

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

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18 pages, 722 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Exploring the Viability of Local Electricity Markets for Managing Congestion in Spanish Distribution Networks

by Fernando García-Muñoz, Mariana Jiménez-Martínez, Josh Eichman, Cristina Corchero and Gabriela Benveniste

Energies 2024, 17(3), 659; https://doi.org/10.3390/en17030659 - 30 Jan 2024

Viewed by 612

Abstract

This article presents the methodology and results developed as part of the Integration of Energy Resources through Local Electricity Markets (IREMEL) project, whose aim is to assess the capability of flexibility markets to manage eventual distribution network (DN) congestion produced by a high penetration of distributed energy resources (DERs), including photovoltaic (PV) panels, battery energy storage systems (BESSs), and electric vehicles (EVs). The distribution system simulator OpenDSS has been used to simulate three Spanish DNs under multiple DER penetration scenarios considering an urban and rural low-voltage network and an industrial medium-voltage DN. Likewise, the congestion events detected in the annual simulations have been used to measure the potential of flexibility markets under different DER penetrations and energy pricing. The results suggest that oversized distribution networks could prevent a profitable flexibility market implementation since the simulations developed in this article shows that networks with high congestion levels are prime candidates to solve this issue through a market mechanism. Likewise, the results suggest that a proper price for the energy managed through a local flexibility market (LFM) could have a bigger effect on market viability than DER penetration. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Approaches and Valuation in Electricity Markets)

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Review

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26 pages, 969 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperReview

Business Models for Energy Community in the Aggregator Perspective: State of the Art and Research Gaps

by Marina Bertolini and Gregorio Morosinotto

Energies 2023, 16(11), 4487; https://doi.org/10.3390/en16114487 - 02 Jun 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1937

Abstract

Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) are spreading under the pressure of climate change mitigation plans and the framework, recognized as the most suitable to exploit DER diffusion, is the Energy Community (EC). Understanding the role of energy companies, especially Aggregators, in this context, is still an open topic, as it is not clear how they can support members in the aggregation process and how they create value through their business. The aim of the study is therefore to revise whatever is currently present in the research agenda and consequently a systematic literature review has been carried out. The contribution of this work consists of illustrating the main features of Aggregators, pointing out how they implement their strategies in the energy markets, with which services they capture value, who their partners and customers are, what the financial aspects are of their activities with respect to the size of the aggregated clusters, and, in conclusion, which are the main business model structures currently deployed. Then, considerations are made concerning EC context, identifying the areas where an Aggregator could usefully support communities’ establishment and management, solving well-known hindrances, and what gaps future research should fill. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Approaches and Valuation in Electricity Markets)

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