Impact of neighborhood energy trading and renewable energy communities on the operation and planning of distribution networks

Recently, the regulation in several countries is opening the possibility for electricity end-users to directly transact with their neighbors, in the framework of energy communities. Energy communities equipped with both distributed generation units, mainly from photovoltaics, and storage units will favor the local balance between production and consumption during the day, with the advantages for the network of improved efficiency on the one hand, and of reduced use on the other. This chapter is aimed to analyze the impact on the operation and the planning of distribution networks where the use of energy trading between neighbors will become significant. The impact on the operation is mainly associated with the optimal scheduling of the generation and storage units available inside the local/citizen/renewable energy communities. The impact is also important for the future planning of network reinforcement since the increased adoption of neighborhood energy trading mechanisms allows deferring the grid investments.