Combining Power-to-Heat and Power-to-Vehicle strategies to provide system flexibility in smart urban energy districts

The deployment of distributed renewable generation in urban districts requires managing local energy excess by means of distributed systems. Sector coupling strategies can be a solution to increase self-consumption, representing an alternative to electric batteries, however their limitations need to be assessed in order to properly plan urban systems.. This study investigates the potential role of heat pumps and smart charging of electric vehicles to provide system flexibility in residential neighbourhoods. Photovoltaic self-consumption, district self-sufficiency, annual costs and CO2 emissions have been assessed by simulating the district using the MATLAB toolbox for EnergyPLAN. Furthermore, the impact of the current energy market crisis has been evaluated. Cross-sector integration is crucial to improve system flexibility. Power-to-Heat system has a positive effect on all parameters, however its potential is limited. Power-to-Vehicle strategy is more effective and allows for doubling the community's self-consumption and self-sufficiency. However, the participation of vehicle owners in smart charging schemes is necessary. The combined implementation considerably improves energy, economic and environmental performance and turns out to be much more effective than electric batteries. Finally, the current increase in energy prices also improves the cost-effectiveness of electric batteries and makes the combined implementation of the three systems the best configuration.