Renewable energy communities : analysis of the technical impacts on the low-voltage grid

As a result of the energy transition, the low-voltage distribution networks are penetrated more and more by technologies such as solar panels, electric vehicles and heat pumps. However, the current grid was not initially designed to support such loads and their development raises more and more issues. In this context, the regulation of voltage fluctuations, unbalance levels and of the overloading of the components is now more crucial than ever. The aim of this master's thesis is to analyse how the emerging concept of renewable energy communities could help alleviate technical constraints, resulting from the penetration of photovoltaic panels, electric vehicles and heat pumps in the low-voltage distribution network. To achieve this, a model was designed to represent a Belgian rural street composed of twenty houses. Based on time-series simulations in PandaPower, the results from multiple asymmetric three-phase power flows compare the implementation of community-shared storage units to the development of privately-owned batteries, while considering different penetration levels for the studied technologies. The main findings include that, depending on the scenario and the penetration level, the implementation of private batteries outperforms the concept of community-shared storage. While the first option decreases the maximum unbalance levels by up to 55%, the second one only reaches 14%. However, the implementation of shared storage units still results in a greater reduction of the average load factors across the community, due to the smaller amount of energy that is fed back into the higher voltage grid.