Cost-optimal economic potential of shared rooftop PV in energy communities: Evidence from Austria

Fina, Bernadette; Auer, Hans; Friedl, Werner

doi:10.1016/j.renene.2020.01.031

Cited by 58 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Various business models for PV systems in multi-apartment buildings are discussed in [5]. Different nuances of PV electricity sharing in districts and energy communities are analyzed in various studies such as [6][7][8][9][10]. Despite various positive aspects of PV sharing concepts, such as self-sufficiency and financial benefits through increasing self-consumption, they still face multiple legal and technical barriers which are discussed in [11].…”

Section: Pv Electricity Sharingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Profitability of Energy Supply Contracting and Energy Sharing Concepts in a Neighborhood Energy Community: Business Cases for Austria

2021

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To ensure broad application of renewable and energy-efficient energy systems in buildings and neighborhoods, profitable business models are vital. Energy supply contracting helps building residents to overcome the barrier of high upfront investment costs while additionally reducing risks related to energy-saving mechanisms. This study examines profitability for energy contractors in a variety of business cases that simultaneously ensure energy cost savings for the residents. A mixed-integer linear optimization model is developed for a neighborhood energy community, consisting of three buildings with diverse usages. In the process, the optimum capacities of building-attached and building-integrated photovoltaics, a heat pump, and a gas-fired mini combined heat and power unit are determined to cover the energy community’s electricity and heat load. Results show that cross-domain contracting within energy communities is highly profitable for both, the contractor and the residents, while the extent depends on the accounting method, assumed interest rate and depreciation time. The additional application of energy-efficiency measures in/on the buildings, constituting a combination of energy supply and energy performance contracting, further increases profitability. The investigation of several sensitivities shows that high grid energy costs for electricity and gas enhance profitability of local energy technologies, leading to an increase in optimal technology capacities.

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Section: Pv Electricity Sharingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Profitability of Energy Supply Contracting and Energy Sharing Concepts in a Neighborhood Energy Community: Business Cases for Austria

2021

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“…To a certain extent, the operation of PV systems is also entirely economically oriented [7], although the operation can also consider local self-reliance and the ambition to maximize local self-consumption [8]. In any case, a large number of studies in the literature deal with the profitability of decentralized local PV systems of individuals within communities [9], often considering small-scale batteries [10] or peer-to-peer trading within a group of prosumers [11]. However, these kinds of first (profitoriented) approaches can be perceived as the beginning of a wider citizen participation and social engagement in energy transition.…”

Section: State-of-the-artmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The remaining building stock of LMABs is used to form Mixed ECs. Exemplarily, the number of City MECs (Λ City ) is calculated using Equation (5) (An even more detailed description of the allocation can be found in [9].). The optimization model applied in this work is constructed on the existing OSM urbs by Dorfner [35] and its extension in [17] (It is noted that this work also has been conducted by the author of this paper.).…”

Section: Settlement Patterns and Model Energy Communitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The MECs are formed from the individual SPs as already presented in Table 1. Regarding the PV system capacities per SP, characteristic rooftop areas are assumed, analogous to the approach in [9]. The grid connection capacity per SP is assumed according to the calculated maximum electricity demand, taking into account a capacity reserve.…”

Section: Appendix A2 Model Validationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Zwickl-Bernhard

Auer

2021

Energies

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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.

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“…Fina et al (2019) expanded this type of approach (i.e., an arbitrary aggregation of loads) by using a Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) model to determine the maximum net present value and optimal system capacities of PV and/or heating systems for a set of illustrative collective arrangements, which the authors named "settlement patterns" [9]. The same authors extended this work and moved to model greater scales using representative ECs at the neighborhood level [19]. On the other hand, Contreras-Ocaña et al addressed the problem of sizing and operating a collective PV system with storage in the context of French regulation considering a business model where the renewable system is financed by an investor and the consumers are charged for consuming its energy [20].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modeling Energy Communities with Collective Photovoltaic Self-Consumption: Synergies between a Small City and a Winery in Portugal

Luz

Silva

2021

Energies

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The recently approved regulation on Energy Communities in Europe is paving the way for new collective forms of energy consumption and production, mainly based on photovoltaics. However, energy modeling approaches that can adequately evaluate the impact of these new regulations on energy community configurations are still lacking, particularly with regards to the grid tariffs imposed on collective systems. Thus, the present work models three different energy community configurations sustained on collective photovoltaics self-consumption for a small city in southern Portugal. This energy community, which integrates the city consumers and a local winery, was modeled using the Python-based Calliope framework. Using real electricity demand data from power transformers and an actual winery, the techno-economic feasibility of each configuration was assessed. Results show that all collective arrangements can promote a higher penetration of photovoltaic capacity (up to 23%) and a modest reduction in the overall cost of electricity (up to 8%). However, there are clear trade-offs between the different pathways: more centralized configurations have 53% lower installation costs but are more sensitive to grid use costs (which can represent up to 74% of the total system costs). Moreover, key actor’s individual self-consumption rate may decrease by 10% in order to benefit the energy community as a whole.

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Cost-optimal economic potential of shared rooftop PV in energy communities: Evidence from Austria

Cited by 58 publications

References 20 publications

Profitability of Energy Supply Contracting and Energy Sharing Concepts in a Neighborhood Energy Community: Business Cases for Austria

Profitability of Energy Supply Contracting and Energy Sharing Concepts in a Neighborhood Energy Community: Business Cases for Austria

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

Modeling Energy Communities with Collective Photovoltaic Self-Consumption: Synergies between a Small City and a Winery in Portugal

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