Empowering Vulnerable Consumers to Join Renewable Energy Communities—Towards an Inclusive Design of the Clean Energy Package

Empowering renewable energy consumption through public-private investment, urbanization, and globalization: Evidence from CS-ARDL and NARDL

This study examines the interrelationship among public-private investment, urbanization, globalization, and renewable energy consumption in the BIMSTEC nations for 1995-2021. The study implemented linear and nonlinear frameworks to document the magnitudes of explanatory variables on REC. Referring to the study findings with CSD, CIPS, CADF, and PCT disclosed the presence of cross-sectional dependency; variables are integrated after the first difference, i.e., I (1), and long-run association. According to symmetric and asymmetric coefficients, Public-private partnerships and globalization have emerged as significant catalysts for developing renewable energy sources. At the same time, urbanization is exposed to an adverse tie with REC, especially in the long-run. Based on the abovementioned findings, the study presents crucial policy recommendations to facilitate the expeditious transition to renewable energy within the BIMSTEC nations. Policymakers should prioritize the cultivation of robust public-private partnerships, the provision of incentives for investments in renewable energy, and the formulation of comprehensive regulatory frameworks.

People have the power. Electricity production, renewable energy transition, and communities empowerment across 11 Nordic-Baltic countries

Stakeholders and communities' involvement is vital for shaping novel intergenerational resource governance frameworks. This is crucial for modelling upcoming energy transitions towards cleaner and more sustainable production systems. New models envisage energy mixes in which renewable resources are prominent and offer sustainable development advantages. Examining electricity production figures is, hence, necessary to understand trends and formulate policies and actions. This paper aims at drafting the state-of-the-art of electricity production in the Nordic-Baltic Sea area, moving an exploratory regional appraisal. Aggregated and disaggregated data on electricity production sources are explored and compared for all the eleven selected countries-at domestic, sub-regional, and regional levels. The region shows great national diversity, which implies diversified energy policies. Thus, the role of local initiatives-such as power grid implementation-in local communities empowerment is revealed. From this outcome, possible strategies are prescribed locally to assist the regional sustainable energy appraisal and furnish indications for the European energy and ecological transition.

Exploring energy citizenship in the urban heating system with the 'Walking with Energy' methodology

Background

Energy citizenship has emerged as a concept which attempts to capture the new role envisaged for urban citizens as engaged and active in the energy transition. However, exactly how to successfully engage energy citizens requires more research and this article aims to contribute to this knowledge gap. The article presents a new methodology, 'Walking with Energy', which seeks to (re)connect citizens with where their energy is coming from. By experimenting with the application of this method in the UK and Sweden, we consider how viewing and talking about heating provision, while in the energy landscape, can encourage participants to reflect upon their local, mundane energy experiences and foster a greater sense of energy citizenship and greater motivation to engage with debates around heating transition.

Results

The article presents four different events: (1) a physical walk to an energy recovery facility, (2) a walk to view a building's heat exchanger, (3) a round-table discussion using pictures to communicate in a language café, and (4) a virtual tour around an Energy Recovery Facility. The way we conducted the events influenced who engaged, for example: the walk through a heat facility and the walk to visit a heat exchanger in the basement of a University building tended to attract white middle-class people, while the virtual tour attracted a more mixed audience in terms of age and background, but most had a strong environmental interest. The language café targeted immigrants. The different events resulted in many similar reflections, but there was also variation. For example, the walk through the heat facility generated the most focused and least diverse reflections, while the event focussed on the heat exchanger opened up a wide range of issues for discussion.

Conclusions

We find that the method encouraged the sharing of personal experiences, storytelling, and deepened the engagement of participants with debates about energy. The method can help promote energy democracy and boost a deliberative dialogue about present and future energy systems among citizens. We also learnt that promotion of energy citizenship requires not only active citizens but also active facilitation to create opportunities for citizens to engage and reflect.

A Digital Support Platform for Community Energy: One-Stop-Shop Architecture, Development and Evaluation

In the European energy market, the community energy sector is earmarked to make a significant contribution to the transition from fossil fuels to sustainable sources. Based on the diffusion of innovation model, large-scale development of community energy requires that the concept and the success of existing energy communities be widely communicated to potential participants and that user confidence be developed over time. In this paper, we present the architecture, design, prototyping, and testing of a digital support platform, co-designed with EU-wide energy communities, to support this process. The platform has been designed to engage early-stage or ongoing groups to progress projects and to connect and share experiences with other communities. This “community of communities” creates the necessary communication channel defined in the Diffusion of Innovation model. A transactional architecture for such a platform is outlined with clear links to all community energy actors. Based on this architecture, a prototype one-stop-shop (OSS) implementation is presented. Feedback gathered and lessons learned from beta testing with a representative group of end-users are outlined. The OSS architecture shows potential as a communications channel to expand the community energy concept and as a monitoring tool to track the progress of the energy community sector.

Trust in Renewable Energy as Part of Energy-Saving Knowledge

Managing the consumer’s knowledge is a factor that is difficult to measure and not easy to achieve, but it is the basis for building trust in energy sources, including alternative ones. Social and ecological attitudes, as well as the economic situation, force consumers to acquire knowledge and shape their views and knowledge about household energy management. The aim of this article was to analyze the level of knowledge of household managers and determine the level of trust in alternative energy sources. To achieve this goal, previous research and reports were analyzed, and a proprietary quantitative and qualitative research was carried out. In connection with the conducted research, it was found that a very important factor is trust, influencing the perception of energy sources, and the knowledge gained allows for proper management of household energy, thus reducing costs. Research has shown that the trust of people managing energy in households is influenced by trust in renewable energy sources, which consists of knowledge, i.e., the level of social awareness and the willingness to acquire and expand one’s knowledge in this field. In all of the countries surveyed, the degree of trust is adequate, but it is directly proportional to the amount of knowledge and readiness to learn new things in this field.

Dynamic participation in local energy communities with peer-to-peer trading

Background: Energy communities and local electricity markets (e.g., as peer-to-peer trading) are on the rise due to increasingly decentralized electricity generation and favorable adjustment of the legal framework in many European countries.  Methods: This work applies a bi-level optimization model for dynamic participation in peer-to-peer electricity trading to determine the optimal parameters of new participants who want to join an energy community, based on the preferences of the members of the original community (e.g., environmental, economic, or mixed preference). The upper-level problem chooses optimal parameters by minimizing an objective function that includes the prosumers' cost-saving and emission-saving preferences, while the lower level problem maximizes community welfare by optimally allocating locally generated photovoltaic (PV) electricity between members according to their willingness-to-pay. The bi-level problem is solved by transforming the lower level problem by its corresponding Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) conditions. Results: The results demonstrate that environment-oriented prosumers opt for a new prosumer with high PV capacities installed and low electricity demand, whereas profit-oriented prosumers prefer a new member with high demand but no PV system capacity, presenting a new source of income. Sensitivity analyses indicate that new prosumers' willingness-to-pay has an important influence when the community must decide between two new members. Conclusions: The added value of this work is that the proposed method can be seen as a basis for a selection process between a large number of potential new community members. Most important future work will include optimization of energy communities over the horizon several years.

A Characterization of European Collective Action Initiatives and Their Role as Enablers of Citizens’ Participation in the Energy Transition

This paper provides novel additional evidence on the characteristics of Collective Action Initiatives (CAIs), investigating their role within the European energy sector. It analyses and presents results of a survey administered in six European countries: the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Poland, Estonia, and Spain. CAIs are studied in light of four key dimensions, those being their creation dynamics, the way they are organized, financed, and the activities they undertake. The results presented are also interpreted to reflect on their role as drivers of social innovation (SI) within energy transition in Europe. The analysis shows that the contribution of CAIs to the energy transition has a much wider scope than the development of energy projects and provision of energy services. CAIs are intrinsically socially innovative models of implementation as characterised by a strong level of citizen involvement and participation. Moreover, they have a potential multi-level role in the energy transition, from the technological and social perspectives. Indeed, alongside traditional energy activities, our results show that CAIs are evolving and expanding towards socially innovative activities, raising awareness on environmental issues, promoting citizens’ mobilization, and fostering social inclusion.

The Power of Co-Creation in the Energy Transition—DART Model in Citizen Energy Communities Projects

Successful energy transformation is interconnected with greater citizenry participation as prosumers. The search for novel solutions to implement the transition to renewable energy that will neutralize the barriers to this process, e.g., the reluctance of citizens to get involved, lack of trust in decision-makers and lack of co-ownership of energy projects, is inevitable as a part of the bottom-up process. Energy communities have vast potential to scale up Renewable Energy projects. Due to the fact that in Poland, establishing citizen energy communities in the cities is not allowed, the key success factor of energy transformation is to engage housing cooperatives and other housing communities in this process. A similar legal framework prevents communities from establishing themselves in the Czech Republic and Hungary. The research problem of this paper is to identify determinants of the co-creation process in Renewable Energy project activation at the housing cooperative level. The aim is to identify key conditions that housing cooperatives should establish in order to successfully undertake Renewable Energy project implementation using a co-creation approach. The literature study shows that the term “co-creation” is not often used in energy transition projects, although many local energy transitions are indeed co-created, unfortunately not in a structured methodical manner. In the research, we apply the DART (Dialogue, Access, Risk, Transparency) model as the framework to conduct the analysis. The study has been carried out using quantitative and qualitative research methods and based on primary and secondary data. Our findings indicate that considering the different areas of the DART model, co-creation was most visible in the area of dialogue-communication between cooperative authorities and its members, while it was least visible in the area of transparency. Based on the results pertaining to the implemented project, the researchers postulate the inclusion of factors beyond the DART model that further shape the co-creation process.

The Transposition of Energy Communities into Swedish Regulations: Overview and Critique of Emerging Regulations

One organizational innovation introduced by the clean energy for all Europeans package (CEP) is that of the energy community (EC), including the renewable energy community (REC) and citizen energy community (CEC). The translation of related directives into national legislation is underway in Sweden, and the Swedish Energy Market Inspectorate (Ei) has proposed a new law on ECs, which has been sent for consultation. This article analyzes the Ei proposal and the responses from the 27 referral bodies commenting on the new EC regulations. Positive aspects of the proposal were that it would be a law on ECs and that it would be easy to start and run an EC. Critics were concerned that the law was too vague, the relationship between existing cooperatives and the new ECs was not clear, both CEC and REC are used instead of only using one term, there is a lack of suggestions on supportive measures for ECs, ECs will have less favorable conditions than other micro-producers of electricity, there is a lack of barrier analysis and visions of a future of ECs, and finally, that the situation for marginalized households was not dealt with in the proposal.

Towards a Just Energy Transition, Barriers and Opportunities for Positive Energy District Creation in Spain

To mitigate the effects of climate change, the European Commission created a Strategic Energy Technology Plan committing to forming 100 Positive Energy Districts (PEDs) by 2025. These are considered to potentially be major instruments for decarbonization in a just transition. This plan has led to some districts being defined as PEDs, although none have fully met the criteria to be a PED yet. Research shows that new forms of energy ownership and production, as could potentially be found in PEDs, could help reduce energy poverty, which affects a significant segment of the population, as households can reduce their energy expenditure as well as improve their energy behavior. This paper set out to shed light on the PED landscape, investigating the barriers and opportunities to PED creation in Spain and its potential to mitigate energy poverty. We conducted a literature review on community-owned energy in Spain, followed with expert interviews (energy researchers, stakeholders, and NGOs) who focus on sustainability issues in Spain. Results show a number of barriers (lack of knowledge and awareness, and lack of trust from consumers) and opportunities connected with the creation of PEDs. In conclusion, policymaker engagement and support play a key role in successfully implementing PEDs.

An Empirical Study of How Household Energy Consumption Is Affected by Co-Owning Different Technological Means to Produce Renewable Energy and the Production Purpose

The transition from fossil fuel-based to renewable energy sources is one of the main economic and social challenges of the early 21st century. Due to the volatile character of wind and solar power production, matching supply and demand is essential for this transition to be successful. In this context, the willingness of private consumers to use energy flexibly has gained growing attention. Research indicates that a viable driver to motivate consumers to be demand flexible is to make them (co-)owners of renewable energy production facilities. However, existing research has only analyzed this question from an aggregated perspective. This article analyses whether behavioral changes triggered by (co-)ownership in renewables differ according to the type of installation; be it solar, wind, or bioenergy. In addition, the prosumption options self-consumption/self-consumption and sale/sale are considered. To do so, we collected 2074 completed questionnaires on energy consumption that entered an econometric model using propensity score matching to control for estimation biases. We find significant differences in the willingness to consume electricity in a flexible manner for (co-)owners of solar installations. However, only the usage of household appliances proves to be statistically significant (p-value = 0.04). Furthermore, the results show that within the group of (co-)owners of solar installation, the choice between self-consumption and sale of the produced energy has a significant effect on the inclination to become demand flexible (p-value ≤ 0.001; p-value = 0.003).

Transposition of European Guidelines for Energy Communities into Austrian Law: A Comparison and Discussion of Issues and Positive Aspects

The Renewable Energy Directive and the Electricity Market Directive, both parts of the Clean Energy for all Europeans Package (issued in 2019), provide supranational rules for renewable energy communities and citizen energy communities. Since national transpositions need to be completed within two years, Austria has already drafted corresponding legislation. This article aims at providing a detailed comparison of the European guidelines and the transposition into Austrian law. The comparison not only shows how, and to what extent, the European guidelines are transposed into Austrian law, but also helps to identify loopholes and barriers. The subsequent discussion of these issues as well as positive aspects of the Austrian transposition may be advantageous for legislators and policy makers worldwide in their process of designing a coherent regulatory framework. It is concluded that experts from different areas (i.e., project developers, scientists concerned with energy communities, energy suppliers and grid operators) should be closely involved in the law-making process in order to introduce different perspectives so that a consistent and supportive regulatory framework for energy communities is created.

New Pathways for Community Energy and Storage

Worldwide, the energy landscape is changing [...]

Economic Viability of Renewable Energy Communities under the Framework of the Renewable Energy Directive Transposed to Austrian Law

This study is concerned with the national transposition of the European Renewable Energy Directive into Austrian law. The objective is to estimate the economic viability for residential customers when participating in a renewable energy community (REC), focused on PV electricity sharing. The developed simulation model considers the omission of certain electricity levies as well as the obligatory proximity constraint being linked to grid levels, thus introducing a stepwise reduction of per-unit grid charges as an incentive to keep the inner-community electricity transfer as local as possible. Results show that cost savings in residential RECs cover a broad range from 9 EUR/yr to 172 EUR/yr. The lowest savings are gained by customers without in-house PV systems, while owners of a private PV system make the most profits due to the possibility of selling as well as buying electricity within the borders of the REC. Generally, cost savings increase when the source is closer to the sink, as well as when more renewable electricity is available for inner-community electricity transfer. The presence of a commercial customer impacts savings for households insignificantly, but increases local self-consumption approximately by 10%. Despite the margin for residential participants to break even being narrow, energy community operators will have to raise a certain participation fee. Such participation fee would need to be as low as 2.5 EUR/month for customers without in-house PV systems in a purely residential REC, while other customers could still achieve a break-even when paying 5 EUR/month to 6.7 EUR/month in addition. Those results should alert policy makers to find additional support mechanisms to enhance customers’ motivations to participate if RECs are meant as a concept that should be adopted on a large scale.