This Research Topic is Volume II of a series. The previous volume, which has attracted over 65,000 views can be found here:
Advanced Technologies for Planning and Operation of Prosumer Energy SystemsProsumers, such as energy storage, smart home, and microgrids, are the consumers who also produce and share surplus energy with other users. With capabilities of flexibly managing the generation, storage and consumption of energy in a simultaneous manner, prosumers can help improve the operation efficiency of smart grid. Due to the rapid expansion of prosumer clusters, the planning and operation issues of prosumer energy systems have been increasingly raised. Aspects including energy infrastructure design, energy management, system stability, etc., are urgently required to be addressed while taking full advantage of prosumers' capabilities. However, up to date, the research on prosumers has not drawn sufficient attention. This proposal presents the need to introduce a Research Topic on prosumer energy systems in Frontiers in Energy Research. We believe this Research Topic can promote the research on advanced planning and operation technologies of prosumer energy systems and contribute to the carbon neutrality for a sustainable society.
The growing penetration of distributed energy resources has promoted traditional passive consumers to active prosumers. Developing a modernized prosumer energy system has become a common global priority because of the huge economic, environmental, and societal benefits that it could offer. However, this modernization implies several critical issues from the technical point of view. First, the ever-increasing penetration of grid-connected prosumers with high renewables leads to the planning and operational complexity for accommodating large-scale intermittent and volatile energy sources. Then, since the prosumers are networked with multi-carrier energy forms and operated by self-interested managers, the multi-energy market framework and a clear pricing mechanism are still open issues for energy sharing and trading among prosumers. Finally, it remains a challenge to ensure cyber security and information privacy of prosumer clusters, due to the intrinsic complexity arising from tight cyber-physical couplings.
The goal of this Research Topic aims to bring together contributions to discuss and highlight the key technologies of prosumer-associated energy systems, which enable the functions of planning, marketing, operation, monitoring and control. The Research Topic on prosumer associated energy systems relates to multiple disciplines, such as energy engineering, computer and control science, (micro) economics, thermal and control engineering. It can provide a platform to facilitate interdisciplinary studies and share the most recent ideas in the related fields.
The topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
(1) Prosumer-associated smart home energy management system;
(2) Energy harvesting, conversion and storage systems for prosumers with design and operational objectives;
(3) Energy infrastructure planning and investment strategies for prosumer associated energy systems with high renewables;
(4) Aggregation and disaggregation methodologies for prosumer clusters to manage and accommodate various renewable energy resources;
(5) Multi-energy management strategies to utilize prosumers' adaptability and versatility in system operations;
(6) Cyber-physical layer modeling and cyber security analysis of prosumer-associated energy systems;
(7) Energy internet and blockchain technologies to facilitate transactive energy trading among prosumers;
(8) IoTs/Cloud-based solutions to prosumer condition monitoring, management and control;
(9) Advanced control methodologies to actively support the safe and stable operation of low inertia prosumer associated energy systems;
(10) Key technologies of prosumer energy systems participating in ancillary service markets, such as automatic generation control, black start, reserve capacity market, inertia and ramping services, etc.
(11) Innovative business models to promote the growth and development of prosumer energy systems;
(12) Lesson learned and experience gained from the practical implementation;
(13) Standardizations and policies that facilitate the application of prosumer associated energy systems.
Dr. Peng Hou is the R&D Lead of SEWPG European Innovation Center, a research center for digital energy solution. This should not pose any conflict for this project, as he is also an academic and serves as an associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Energy and will maintain objectivity.