Analysis of consumer-centric market models in the Brazilian context

In recent years, the large deployment of distributed energy resources (DERs) in low voltage networks is changing the traditional approach to power systems. This massive change is pushing towards new solutions to improve energy trading in low voltage networks. Consumer-centric options, such as full peer-to-peer (P2P) and energy community markets (CM) are seen as viable options to increase the active participation of end-users in the electricity markets. This work studies the full P2P and CM market approaches applied to the actual regulatory framework in Brazil, evaluating and comparing both approaches to be potentially applied in Brazil. A case study based on a typical Brazilian neighborhood is designed, allowing to assess the behavior of consumers and prosumers in both markets. The results show the economic viability of both models, considering the social welfare and the penetration of distributed generation in the system. An important conclusion under the current regulatory framework is that the full P2P can have greater benefits over the CM, as long as the distributed generation is enough to confer near self-sufficiency to the peer’s demand.