An innovative transactive energy architecture for community microgrids in modern multi-carrier energy networks: a Chicago case study

Sci Rep. 2023 Jan 27;13(1):1529. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-28563-7.

Abstract

As the technology of multi-energy carbon-free systems is strikingly developed, renewable-based multi-vector energy integration has become a prevalent trend in the decarbonization procedure of multi-carrier energy networks (MCENs). This paper proposes a fair transactive energy model for structuring an innovative local multi-energy trading market to allow multi-carrier multi-microgrids (MCMGs) with 100% renewable energy sources (RESs) in Chicago for free energy exchange aiming to balance energy in the renewable-dominant environment. Indeed, the main goal of the proposed model is to facilitate the modernization of future MCENs that are targeted to be equipped with 100% RESs and require a holistic model engaged with innovative technologies for the realization. To this end, the transactive energy architecture is designed for techno-environmental-economic assessing hybrid MCMGs to increase their flexibility in unbroken energy serving, decreasing their dependency on the main grid, and improving their economic benefits by considering their contribution level in energy interactions. To effectively model uncertainties of MCENs with 100% RESs, the novel hybrid technique is proposed that considers various stochastic changes of uncertain parameters to achieve confident results. The results highlighted the capability of the proposed model in effectively utilizing fully produced clean energy as well as continuously multi-energy serving of MCMGs in the presence of 100% RESs. Moreover, MCMGs reached techno-environmental-economic benefits by operating under the proposed transactive energy-based model, in which the technical, environmental, and economic goals are respectively realized by considering all constraints of MCENs, producing 100% clean energy by RESs, and reducing the total energy cost from $1,274,742.55 in the based model to $1,159,235.89 in the proposed one.