Co-optimization of storage service scheduling and bidding strategies for community-shared energy storage: a distributionally robust bi-level model

The co-optimization of market participation and user-side service provision is key to ensuring the effective operation of community-shared energy storage systems. In fulfilling this dual role, while user-side storage consumes finite resources, it introduces critical flexibility for optimizing market bidding strategies. However, the literature has focused primarily on isolated optimizations and neglects this user-side flexibility, preventing community-shared energy storage systems from maximizing their economic benefits in electricity markets; thus, a substantial research gap remains. To bridge this gap, a synergistic optimization framework for community-shared energy storage that couples market trading with user-side scheduling is proposed in this paper. By integrating user-side flexibility, specifically in terms of building thermal inertia, the framework alleviates resource conflicts and enhances market competitiveness. Subsequently, a bi-level co-optimization model is formulated to capture this hierarchical joint decision-making. The upper level represents the profit-maximization problem of the community-shared energy storage operator by integrating user-side flexibility responses, while the lower level characterizes the electricity market-clearing process. To validate this framework, transmission-constrained IEEE 6-bus, 14-bus, and 30-bus test systems were employed and the numerical results demonstrate that integrating user-side flexibility increases the total profit of community-shared energy storage by 3.2%. The proposed model effectively enables community-shared energy storage systems that balance efficient user-side services with optimal market bidding strategies, offering a practical solution for increasing profits.