Apartment to grid (A2G) paradigm for demand and cost sensitive residential complex energy management

•A2G system is proposed for demand and cost sensitive apartment energy management.•A2G includes schedulable and controllable loads, EVs and energy storage devices.•A2G performs load shifting/shaping by aggregating and coordinating its components.•A2G deals with energy policy, energy optimization criteria and fairness issues.•A2G systems can be aggregated into a networked A2Gs for promoting benefits.

As a special form of microgrid, an apartment to grid (A2G) system is conceptually designed and proposed for demand and cost sensitive energy management based on the energy implications and electricity consumption characteristics of apartment complexes in Korea. The A2G system aggregates generators as well as loads, and its energy management decisions are made by A2G System Manager with energy profiles from the aggregated components in the system. Fundamental factors such as energy policy, energy optimization criteria, and fair benefit sharing issues are dealt with exemplary scenarios and case studies. Load shifting/shaping can be easily achieved by the coordination of the A2G system components which are already closely and densely aggregated unlike those components in a typical microgrid as well as V2G. Then, a network of A2Gs, namely an A2G Network is introduced as a business model to promote the benefit of aggregation. The main contribution of the proposed A2G system comes from it's innate nature, aggregation of its components; both economic benefits as well as system stability could potentially be achieved through more effective load shifting/shaping by the coordination of the existing aggregated A2G system components.