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

Mainstreaming Community Energy: Is the Renewable Energy Directive a Driver for Renewable Energy Communities in Germany and Italy?

By 30 June 2021, EU Member States were expected to transpose the recast Renewable Energy Directive (RED II) which includes provisions for renewable energy communities (RECs) and to develop an enabling framework to promote the development of RECs. Although there is a growing number of studies analysing the emergence of various forms of community energy, comparative studies investigating the transposition and creation of enabling frameworks for RECs in a multi-level governance (MLG) perspective are scarce. This article examines the transposition in Germany and Italy and compares elements of the respective enabling frameworks. Key methods include context and MLG analysis combined with methods of descriptive (legal) studies. Insights and participatory observations of the stakeholder desks established in the Horizon2020 project COME RES complement the spectrum of methods deployed. Although community energy development is more advanced in Germany, the transposition of the RED II provisions has been slow and piecemeal so far. Conversely, in Italy, RED II played a catalyst role; the transposition has been rather dynamic and encouraged a continuous growth of REC initiatives. Nevertheless, a widespread uptake of RECs requires structural adjustments of the governance system in both countries and attention to MLG as well as vertical policy coordination.

Different Technologies’ Impacts on the Economic Viability, Energy Flows and Emissions of Energy Communities

The aim of this study is to provide insights regarding the economic viability of and energy flows within a renewable energy community based on a linear optimisation model with peer-to-peer electricity trading. Different technologies, such as PV, heat pumps, electric vehicles, and a community battery storage, are modelled. With the objective of achieving a cost-optimal solution for the whole community, the individual impacts of different technologies, as well as their permutations, are investigated. Therefrom, financial and environmental advantages and disadvantages for individual participants and the whole community can be derived. The results indicate that customers who are equipped with a combination of PV systems, heat pumps, and EVs achieve better individual results compared to those with lower levels of technology. Especially when heat pumps are involved, the amounts of PV electricity generated can be used with high efficiency, increasing the benefits of energy community participation. Moreover, the higher the level of electricity-based technologies within the community is, the lower the conventional grid feed-in becomes. An additional implementation of a community battery storage can further reduce these amounts and, thus, the grid burden. Apart from the financial benefits, the installation of additional assets and, thus, reduced grid feed-in contribute to the reduction of CO2-emissions. This study’s results can aid in making decisions regarding investments and energy community composition, as well as in the funding decisions of policymakers.

Economic Viability of Energy Communities versus Distributed Prosumers

As distribution grids are made to accommodate significant amounts of renewable energy resources, the power system evolves from a classical producer-consumer scheme to a new one that includes individual prosumers or energy communities. This article contributes to the exploration of the solution to the dilemma of whether to be a distributed prosumer or an energy community prosumer by comparing the profitability of these two business models. To achieve this goal, a high-resolution methodology is created for measuring economic performance via proposed indices under different development scenarios of renewable proliferation and various network configurations. The developed methodology considers today’s electricity billing and renewable support scheme net metering. The results indicate that, first, the energy community is a more profitable framework than the individual distributed prosumer: avoided costs for energy community are, on average, 20% higher than for the individual, resulting in a payback period of the energy community that is about two times shorter than for owners of rooftop installations. Such promising results should encourage ordinary consumers to be members of energy communities. Second, the energy losses in the power distribution system are slightly higher for the case of energy communities rather than individual prosumers, yet the difference is insignificant, about 0.2%. Third, regulatory barriers shall be removed to enable participation of Latvian prosumers and distribution system operators to the energy communities, as it will benefit all the stakeholders and facilitate economically efficient energy transition. The results of this study could be adopted by decision-makers, such as government agencies, companies, and solar and wind turbine owners.

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.

Citizen Participation in Low-Carbon Energy Systems: Energy Communities and Its Impact on the Electricity Demand on Neighborhood and National Level

In this work, the main research question is how a high penetration of energy communities (ECs) affects the national electricity demand in the residential sector. Thus, the existing building stock of three European regions/countries, namely, the Iberian Peninsula, Norway, and Austria, is analyzed and represented by four different model energy communities based on characteristic settlement patterns. A tailor-made, open-source model optimizes the utilization of the local energy technology portfolio, especially small-scale batteries and photovoltaic systems within the ECs. Finally, the results on the national level are achieved by upscaling from the neighborhood level. The findings of different 2030 scenarios (building upon narrative storylines), which consider various socio-economic and techno-economic determinants of possible future energy system development, identify a variety of modification potentials of the electricity demand as a result of EC penetration. The insights achieved in this work highlight the important contributions of ECs to low-carbon energy systems. Future work may focus on the provision of future local energy services, such as increasing cooling demand and/or high shares of electric vehicles, further enhancement of the upscaling to the national level (i.e., considering the distribution network capacities), and further diversification of EC composition beyond the residential sector.