Case study of electric and DHW energy communities in a Mediterranean district

Abstract

Energy communities can play a key role to move towxards a low-carbon and decentralized energy system with higher penetration of renewable energies, offering new opportunities for citizens to actively participate in the energy transition. However, the term energy community is practically exclusively addressed in literature as photovoltaic systems shared by several users to cover their electricity needs. The present work describes the georeferenced modelling and assessment of potential domestic hot water energy communities based on heat pumps and photovoltaic energy communities in 150 residential buildings in a representative Mediterranean city. The main objective is to widen the concept of energy communities and to quantify their potential. The aggregated economic and emission savings of domestic hot water in the district can reach up to 85% and 73% respectively for heat pumps, and 22% and 23% respectively with photovoltaic systems. The analysis shows that domestic hot water energy communities should be prioritized if the objective of the decision-maker is to reduce the CO2 emissions. However, photovoltaics energy communities reach higher economic savings. Combining the two energy communities could help reach the Fit for 55 package objectives for 2030, with emission savings up to 56%. The results show that 80% of emission savings can be achieved by acting only on 35% of the buildings.