Sizing distributed energy resources in a renewable energy community with a grid-aware internal market structure.

This paper proposes a cooperative approach aimed at distributed energy resources sizing in a renewable energy community, with considerations of the community's optimal operation, impact on the electrical grid and an allocation of the benefits to its members. To this purpose, multiple investment modes are evaluated via a two-step procedure. In the first step, the size of renewable energy sources is determined by solving an optimization problem that maximizes community welfare, considering network and investments. In the second step, an optimization problem maximizing additional community member profit with price regularization is solved. This step shares benefits among community members. The potential of the proposed procedure is illustrated using a benchmark Dickert-LV network. This is a full y cooperative framework where the community operator is ensuring adequate grid operation, operational planning and sizing of new investments. • Energy communities are a good enabler for energy transition and prosumer empowerment. • The incentive for DER investment that they provide needs quantification. • Intra-community exchanges and co-investments have effects on the grid. • What are the benefits of an energy communities with and without co-investments? • How could these benefits and return on investments be computed? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]