Modeling the decentralized energy investment and operation in the prosumer era: a systematic review

Abstract

This paper reviews the literature on the modeling approaches on decentralized energy investment and operation in the prosumer era. The study has several contributions. Firstly, it adds investment models into the review which have not been previously reviewed for decentralized energy modeling. Secondly, a modeling framework consisting of four building blocks is proposed that covers model conceptualization and model operationalization. Thirdly, the relationship between trading mechanisms and model methods is revealed using four evaluation criteria. Furthermore, by reviewing the papers, several trends in the literature are found. Operational models and local markets have been extensively studied, while wholesale market integration and investment models lack scientific attention. Among different trading mechanisms, the usage of bilateral contracts is most commonly seen. Lastly, optimization models significantly outnumber other model methods, and then it follows that their pitfalls such as the scalability of the model and the existence of stable outcomes need to be further addressed in future research.