Development of Community Grid: Review of Technical Issues and Challenges

The concept of a community grid is presented here. It involves the distribution grid and an increased use of renewable energy coming from distributed resources along with consumer/prosumer engagement in the energy trading mechanism. The possible operation and management with energy trading flexibility are briefly outlined. Under such scenario, the classical operation of the distribution grid is challenged by the issues brought about by the large penetration level of the new energy resources. This paper presents a status review of the technical issues that may appear under the community grid scenario. Building up on these surveyed issues, this paper also reviews and discusses approaches to solutions, which are required in order to make the community grid highly renewable and sustainable.