Industrial energy organizations: cost sharing, grid effect, and storing energy development

industrial energy users have often been overlooked in studies of distributed energy systems, which typically focus on residential consumers, leaving a research gap in understanding their potential role in grid optimization and cost reduction. This study addresses that gap by investigating the economic and operational benefits of energy storage for industrial participants within energy communities, using real data from a dairy manufacturing facility and a surrounding urban area in Trondheim, Denmark, over a full calendar year (2021). We develop an optimization model to evaluate two scenarios: one where the industrial user invests in thermal energy storage (TES) independently, and another where it collaborates with the city as a power society employing aggregated net billing. Our results reveal that community-level optimization leads to a 1.5 % reduction in total energy costs and a 5 % decrease in maximum grid imports, compared to the baseline with no storage. TES emerges as a more cost-effective solution than battery energy storage systems (BESS), particularly for industrial users with high heat demand. Furthermore, the choice of cost allocation method significantly influences industrial users' motivation to join energy communities, with Shapley value-based sharing proving to be the most equitable and incentivizing. These findings suggest that integrating industrial actors into local energy societies and prioritizing TES investments can enhance grid efficiency, support decarbonization goals, and inform policy on fair benefit distribution mechanisms in energy transition strategies.