How Smart Metering and Smart Charging may Help a Local Energy Community in Collective Self-Consumption in Presence of Electric Vehicles

The 2018/2001/EU renewable energy directive (RED II) underlined the strategic role of energy communities in the EU transition process towards sustainable and renewable energy. In line with the path traced by RED II, this paper proposes a solution that may help local energy communities in increasing self-consumption. The proposed solution is based on the combination of smart metering and smart charging. A set of smart meters returns the profile of each member of the community with a time resolution of 5 s; the aggregator calculates the community profile and regulates the charging of electric vehicles accordingly. An experimental test is performed on a local community composed of four users, where the first is a consumer with a Nissan Leaf, whereas the remaining three users are prosumers with a photovoltaic generator mounted on the roof of their home. The results of the experimental test show the feasibility of the proposed solution and demonstrate its effectiveness in increasing self-consumption. The paper also calculates the subsidy that the community under investigation would receive if the current Italian incentive policies for renewables were extended to local energy communities; this subsidy is discussed in comparison with the subsidies that the three prosumers individually receive thanks to the net metering mechanism. This paper ends with an economic analysis and calculation of savings on bills when the four users create the local energy community and adopt the proposed combination of smart metering and smart charging.