Optimizing design and performance assessment of a community-scale hybrid power system with distributed renewable energy and flexible demand response

Modern urban energy system with renewable energy sources has become an effective solution to enhance energy security and promote carbon neutrality. This paper presents a holistic framework for the optimal design and management of such a flexible hybrid power system at the community scale. This framework integrates the potential assessment of rooftop PV and waste biomass, a general optimization approach with multi-perspective performance evaluation, as well as the impacts analysis of energy policy, demand response, and uncertain economic parameters. The proposed framework was applied to a small neighborhood area in Beijing, China. It was found that 100% utilization of available biomass and rooftop PV would satisfy 73% of local electricity demand with the levelized cost of electricity of 0.1030 $/kWh and the embodied carbon emission of 0.5416 kg/kWh. The flexible shiftable load could lead to lower peak load and less electricity supply cost, and help to match the energy demand with the dispatchable rooftop PV output. However, the economic benefits caused by implementing demand response are more obvious than the environmental benefits. Furthermore, a higher electricity tariff and lower capital cost of PV technology would facilitate the investment in rooftop PV and achieve carbon emission reduction targets.