Building Energy Commons: Three Mini-PV Installation Cases in Apartment Complexes in Seoul

Abstract

Solar photovoltaics (PV) deployment is not easy in dense urban areas because there is little space for the installation. Furthermore, tenants have few incentives to install PV panels because they frequently relocate, and most PV facilities are nonremovable. To address these factors, this study reports on an innovative model that collectively installed 260 W of mini-PV on the balconies of almost all the households in two high-rise apartment complexes in Seoul, South Korea. This project was unique in that it established energy commons in a community using private space. This study found that economic and social factors significantly influenced community-internal or micro factors, which in turn affected the success of the community energy project. Economic factors such as the expected economic benefit and residents paying no direct installation costs shaped the initial conditions for the commencement of the project. Leadership played a key role by speeding up the process, relieving residents’ concerns and distrust. This study introduced an innovative community energy model that can be referenced by megacities and communities. It provides opportunities for enhancing awareness of energy transition via on-site energy production using renewable energy and allows even communities that have insufficient common space to build energy commons.

Pro-Environmental Behaviors of Generation Z in the Context of the Concept of Homo Socio-Oeconomicus

“…These authors pointed to the benefits of regulations, allowing for joint action within "energy cooperatives", however their research also shows that Swiss residents approach this idea with great caution [72]. The problems relating to installing photovoltaic panels on multi-family buildings were also addressed by Pintér et al [77] and Yang et al [78]. In the case of innovative solutions (and the discussed pro-environmental programs should be considered as such), an important role is played by trust, the rank of which, in the respondents' perception, was rather low.…”

Sustainable energy transition and circular economy: The heterogeneity of potential investors in rural community renewable energy projects

“…Following Klein and Coffey (2016), to orient the analysis of the WTI in CRE, three main sets of theories are considered: utility and rational choice theories to deal with financial issues (risk, return, and payback period); the theory of planned behavior to account for the influence of concerns, attitudes, and personal characteristics; and the information deficit model to account for the limited knowledge about energy and financial issues of the general population. Combining these theoretical frameworks, the decision to invest in CRE has been addressed in previous literature by various studies, fundamentally qualitative and based on semi or unstructured interviews, and from an ex-post (Dóci & Gotchev, 2016;Dóci & Vasileiadou, 2015;von Bock & Polach et al, 2015;Yang et al, 2021) or exante (Rogers et al, 2008) perspective. Studies based on quantitative techniques are scarcer (Fleiß et al, 2017).…”