Abstract
Energy storage systems, integrated in Renewable Energy Communities (REC), are enabling the development of operation strategies together with Photovoltaic (PV) systems. Additionally, Local Energy Markets (LEM) are emerging mechanisms to enable local energy trading in RECs, the integration of storage systems can increase the community energy savings and profits. In this context, a market environment was modelled as a Markov Decision Process (MDP). In this scope, an Agent Based Model (ABM) using the Q-Learning mechanism was used to implement and to simulate a LEM and its interaction with the Wholesale Market (WSM), also considering an architecture with storage systems. The developed model was tested considering real data regarding energy consumption and PV generation. The paper describes and discusses the obtained market strategy and the profits that can be obtained with this approach.

Abstract
Power systems are evolving very rapidly namely in what concerns the technologies used to generate electricity, the diversification of commercial relationships involving different agents and more specifically the empowerment of consumers. In this scope, several countries passed new legislation to induce the installation of Renewable Energy Communities, RECs, to induce new investments at a local level, to empower end consumers and to increase their self-sufficiency. However, the way Local Energy Markets, LEMs, will be integrated into Wholesale Markets, WSM, is not yet fully established. To this end, this paper proposes a design and an optimization model to increase the mentioned self-sufficiency level, to better manage the energy produced locally, also admitting the installation of battery storage units, and to profit as much as possible of them. LEM interaction with WSM, is based on an Agent Based Model architecture equipped with a Q-learning strategy. An economic assessment is also included, in order to get insights if some level of exemption, for instance associated with some components of the Access Tariffs, have to be considered in order to induce the massification of RECs.

Abstract
This paper describes the work developed to estimate the impact of the Special Regime Generation, SRG, in the generation cost in Portugal. Till the beginning of 2021 the values of the feed in tariffs paid to SRG were much larger than the market price paid to Normal Regime Generation, NRG, and this gap was often considered as a burden subsidized by consumers. In order to bring rational arguments to this discussion, several MSc Thesis were developed in recent years at the Engineering Faculty of Porto University to estimate the global generation cost in the country considering the current feed in regime and also admitting that generation paid feed in tariffs was reduced. This implied the calculation of the new market price if SRG was reduced and conversely NRG was increased. The results of the simulations developed for 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 indicate that the impact of SRG very much depends on the market price along the year. If the market price is reduced (for instance in good hydrological years as 2020) the elimination of SRG reduces the generation cost. Conversely, if the market price is high, the elimination of SRG tends to increase the generation cost.

Abstract
In every critical infrastructure system, unexpected events and outages have the potential to cause massive impacts, affecting people and the economy, such as in the power power grid blackouts. To avoid similar incidents in the future, extensive research is necessary to improve resilience and reliability of power grids. This work presents a Transmission Expansion Planning (TEP) model that confronts the largely adopted deterministic security criteria N-1 versus an AC-Cascade Failure Model (AC-CFM) analysis. The main goal is to highlight the importance of cascade failure analysis to increase power system resilience. Tests over the NREL-118 system verify the AC-CFM coupling in TEP models, demonstrating its benefits for assuming a risky proneness behavior for reaching long-term power grid resilience.

Abstract
This paper presents a new strategy for recharging electric vehicles in residential buildings. The proposed approach minimizes the difference between desired and final state of charge (SOC) by the end of the charging period, by adjusting the charging power for each vehicle in real-time. A non-linear optimization problem is formulated, considering the initial and final SOC, as well as available charging time, and total available power. Results were compared to a baseline and show that the proposed solution outperforms the currently most used nonoptimized method, particularly in high demand scenarios, where we achieve values of 9.3% of curtailed range when compared with the non-optimized methodology.

Abstract
The replacement of fossil fuel power plants by variable renewable energy sources is reducing the flexibility of the energy system, which puts at risk its security. Exploiting the flexibility of distributed multi-energy resources through aggregators presents a solution for this problem. In this context, this paper presents a new hierarchical model predictive control framework to assist multi-energy aggregators in the network-secure delivery of multi-energy services traded in electricity, natural gas, green hydrogen, and carbon markets. This work builds upon and complements a previous work from the same authors related to bidding strategies for day-ahead markets - it closes the cycle of aggregators' participation in multi-energy markets, i.e., day-ahead bidding and real-time activation of flexibility services. This new model predictive control framework uses the alternating direction method of multipliers on a rolling horizon to negotiate the network-secure delivery of multi-energy services between aggregators and distribution system operators of electricity, gas, and heat networks. We used the new model predictive control framework to conduct two studies. In the first study, we found that considering multi-energy network constraints at both day-ahead and real-time optimization stages produces the most cost-effective and reliable solution to aggregators, outperforming state-of-the-art approaches in terms of cost and network security. In the second study, we found that the adoption of a green hydrogen policy by multi-energy aggregators can reduce their consumption of natural gas and respective CO2 emissions significantly if carbon and green hydrogen prices are competitive.& COPY; 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.