Assessment of local energy trading in a residential energy hub with demand management

The energy hub approach facilitates the interconnection of diverse energy infrastructures. This paper presents a mathematical formulation to evaluate the operational mode of a residential energy hub model for assessing the possible level of local energy trading. Electricity and natural gas are the inputs of this energy hub that meet a typical house's electric and heat demands. Integrating renewable energy sources and energy storage systems streamlines the energy hub framework. A home load management (HLM) strategy is proposed to manage the energy consumption of responsive appliances. Solar panels and battery operation are coordinated with the household demand response to minimize the customer cost and maximize self-consumption. The main objective of this study is to reduce consumer costs by considering the hourly effects of time varying electric tariffs on energy hub optimization results. The presented results proved that the HLM application alone reduced the daily payment of customers by around 15% compared to those without HLM. The increased surplus energy may be a basis for local energy trading without grid involvement and is considered a viable option to further reduce customer payments. A novel approach is analyzed using TRNSYS software to identify real-time execution of household-level energy production and local trading potential. Furthermore, the contribution of HLM to energy sharing is investigated at the prosumer-consumer perspective. © 2024 The Authors