Summary
IEICE Information and Communication Technology Forum
2016
Session Number:B4
Session:
Number:B4-1
A Virtual Microgrid Aggregator Platform for Distributed and Small-Scale RES Prosumers' Management
Emmanuel Varvarigos, Prodromos Makris, Dimitrios J. Vergados, Ioannis Mamounakis,
pp.-
Publication Date:2016-10-01
Online ISSN:2188-5079
Summary:
Small or very small energy prosumers who produce renewable energy and sell the energy surplus consumed find it difficult to participate in a liberalized electricity market. This happens due to the fact that the marginal costs of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) production are very low and so are the respective prices in the market. EU co-funded VIMSEN project’s premise is that multiple RES prosumers are able to be grouped in virtual associations, which can represent their interests in a liberalized electricity market in a more efficient way. These so called “Virtual MicroGrid (VMG) associations" have greater negotiation power in the market and can even play the role of “price makers". This type of “VMG infrastructure" needs the aid of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to be realized. In this paper, we propose a Decision Support System (DSS) to be used by aggregators or Energy Service Companies (ESCOs), which monitors and manages decentralized RES prosumers, via a web-enabled software platform. The platform’s implementation is based on virtualization techniques and a wide range of functionalities are described, tested and validated. Over 40 real-life prosumers’ profiles are used and results of various decision-making algorithms show that under different formations of prosumers’ groups (i.e. “clusterings") can provide remarkable energy savings and monetary profits for the end users.