Risk-Adapted Capacity Determination of Flexibility Investments for Distributed Energy Resource Systems

Abstract

Distributed energy resource (DER) systems, composed of different small to medium-sized renewable and conventional energy generators, allow to balance the volatile supply from renewable energies. Considering a DER system with power and district heat, small combined heat and power (CHP) plants and their flexible operation play a central role. Flexibility investments such as heat storage devices provide further flexibility for the DER system. In this contribution, the profitability of an investment in a heat storage device and its optimal capacity are examined. An innovative decision support approach for capacity determination of such flexibility investments is applied considering the investment’s benefit throughout its entire lifetime. System dependency as well as the decision maker’s risk attitude are taken into account. The developed two-stage stochastic programming model simultaneously optimizes the operation of the DER system and the investment’s capacity. In a simulation study, the calculated capacities are evaluated. An exemplary case study illustrates the advantages of the proposed approach.