Abstract
The Clean Energy for all Europeans Package by the EU aims, among other things, to enable collective self-consumption for various forms of energy. This step towards more prosumer-based and decentralized energy systems comes at a time when energy planning at a neighborhood scale is on the rise in many countries. It is widely assumed that—from a prosumer’s cost-perspective—shared conversion and storage technologies supplying more than a single building can be advantageous. However, it is not clear whether this is the case generally or only under certain conditions. By analyzing idealized building clusters at different degrees of urbanization (DOU), a linear-optimization approach is used to study the cost difference between shared energy infrastructure (smart energy neighborhoods, SENs) and individually planned buildings. This procedure is carried out for various emission reduction targets. The results show, that with higher emission reduction targets the advantage of SENs increases within rural environments and can reach up to 16%. Nevertheless, there are constellations in which the share of energetic infrastructure among buildings does not lead to any economic advantages. For example, in the case of building clusters with less than four buildings, almost no cost advantage is found. The result of this study underlines the importance of energy system planning within the process of urban planning.
Highlights
In May 2019, the Clean Energy for all Europeans Package [1] was passed
The cost difference between these two model configurations can be interpreted as the cost advantage (CAS) of a smart energy neighborhood compared to individually planned buildings
Only in the case of a neighborhood that can be assigned to a colored area, forming an energetically interconnected neighborhood leads to an advantage
Summary
In May 2019, the Clean Energy for all Europeans Package [1] was passed It is “the most comprehensive EU legislative package ever on energy and climate policy” [2] and it introduces, among other things, the concept of energy communities. It recognizes, “for the first time under EU law, the rights of citizens and communities to engage directly in the energy sector” [3] and it confirms that energy citizens have the right to generate, store, sell, and self-consume renewable energy. Article 22 defines the concept of renewable energy communities, including the sharing of energy within an entity [5]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary 
Published Version (
Free)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call