A comprehensive survey of distributed optimization methods and technological enablers for sustainable energy communities

Sustainable energy communities (ECs) are rapidly expanding in scale and heterogeneity, making fully centralized energy management increasingly impractical due to computational burden and privacy concerns. In this context, this review synthesizes distributed optimization (DO) as a practical management paradigm for ECs, identifies key application areas (demand response, distributed generation and storage management, and microgrid or smart-grid integration) and profiles scalability, privacy, and resilience characteristics. The survey follows a systematic protocol: records are sourced from Scopus, filtered with iteratively refined keyword sets, and screened following a PRISMA flow. Key technological enablers, such…