Energy Performance Investigation of Bi-Directional Convergence Energy Prosumers for an Energy Sharing Community

Due to the wide-spread use of photovoltaic (PV) systems, interest regarding economic benefit and energy-sharing from surplus electricity has been raised. In this study, decentralized thermal and electric convergence energy prosumers for an energy-sharing community are proposed. For the convergence energy system, a simultaneous heating and cooling heat pump (SHCHP) system integrated with a thermal network is proposed, and the energy performance and operating energy savings of the proposed system were investigated. A smart village located in the Busan Eco Delta Smart City was selected as a case study for the simulation analysis. Experimental data of the heat pump system were used to analyze the SHCHP. The analysis results showed that the proposed system could provide over 53% and 86% of the load cover and supply cover factors, respectively. The proposed system can earn economic benefits, such as energy trading from the surplus electricity of PV systems and thermal energy produced by an SHCHP, more than 30.5 times those of conventional air-source heat pump systems. These benefits mainly originate that a conventional system can trade the surplus electricity from a PV system but the proposed system can trade produced thermal energy from SHCHPs and the surplus electricity from PV systems.