Usage of GAMS-Based Digital Twins and Clustering to Improve Energetic Systems Control

With the increasing constraints on energy and resource markets and the non-decreasing trend in energy demand, the need for relevant clean energy generation and storage solutions is growing and is gradually reaching the individual home. However, small-scale energy storage is still an expensive investment in 2022 and the risk/reward ratio is not yet attractive enough for individual homeowners. One solution is for homeowners not to store excess clean energy individually but to produce hydrogen for mutual use. In this paper, a collective production of hydrogen for a daily filling of a bus is considered. Following our previous work on the subject, the investigation consists of finding an optimal buy/sell rule to the grid, and the use of the energy with an additional objective: mobility. The dominant technique in the energy community is reinforcement learning, which however is difficult to use when the learning data is limited, as in our study. We chose a less data-intensive and yet technically well-documented approach. Our results show that rulebooks, different but more interesting than the usual robust rule, exist and can be cost-effective. In some cases, they even show that it is worth punctually missing the H-2 production requirement in exchange for higher economic performance. However, they require fine-tuning as to not deteriorate the system performance.

Automated summary

With the growing constraints on energy and resource markets and the continuous increase in energy demand, the demand for clean energy generation and storage solutions is rising, even at the individual home level. However, small-scale energy storage is still an expensive investment in 2022, and the risk/reward ratio is not attractive enough for individual homeowners. One alternative is for homeowners to collectively produce hydrogen instead of individually storing excess clean energy.