Optimal Selection of Photovoltaic Generation for a Community of Electricity Prosumers

Abstract

In the lasts five years, in Brazil, there has been a significant growth of photovoltaic generation installed directly in the consumer side of meters, constituting the so-called prosumers. However, most of these insertions occur in an individual way, as self-consumption, with net-metering system. Few units take advantage of the possibility to form a community with multiple consumer units. Thus, the present work seeks to show the benefit to consumers of installing photovoltaic generation individually or forming communities of prosumers. Thus, a mixed integer linear programming model was used to select and operate photovoltaic generation technologies, considering the Brazilian net-metering system, in order to minimize the annualized total cost to meet the demand of the prosumers. Tests were conducted for prosumers connected individually and in virtual communities, for two tariff modalities, conventional and time of use. The results show that there is an increase in the benefit obtained by some of the individually connected prosumers when they install photovoltaic generation. However, when the option is to form a community the benefit may have a more significant increase.