Optimal management of multi-stakeholder distributed energy systems in low-carbon communities considering demand response resources and carbon tax

Abstract As the climate is rapidly changing, the need for carbon emissions reduction in sustainable cities and communities has increased. To facilitate the development of low-carbon communities with the growing installation of distributed energy systems, this paper explores bidirectional interactive behaviors among multi-stakeholder energy systems and seek energy management strategies in neighboring communities. The distributed energy systems can share their surplus energy or request insufficient energy in one area, considering the demand-side resources. A collaborative hierarchical framework is developed to coordinate electricity and heat interaction. Multiple independent optimization problems for decentralized stakeholders are obtained and solved based on an analytical target cascading algorithm, in which Lagrangian penalty terms are considered to ensure consistency in energy bidirectional interaction. The influence of carbon tax, and electrical and thermal demand response on the results of the multi-stakeholders interaction problem has been analyzed. The results show that a win-win situation is achieved for all participators while considering the proposed coordination scheme. The total cost and carbon dioxide emissions are reduced obviously. Moreover, implementing carbon tax leads to a decrease in electricity and heat parallel interaction. If policymakers want to keep energy sharing among communities actively, the carbon tax should be set at a reasonable range.