Energy communities and key features emerged from business models review

Abstract

Climate emergency has changed the way of supplying energy, replacing fossil fuels in favour of a transition to renewable sources crucial for the system decarbonization. This change has led to a review of the electricity consumption and distribution model. Recently end-users connected to distribution grids have taken an increasing active role in the electrical power system. Such a situation highlights how the combination between distributed generation-active user, through the concept of energy self-consumption that turns in energy sharing for a ‘collective’ form, allowed by virtual self-consumption, seems to be a good solution to achieve both climate targets and solve technical issues related to renewables penetration. Aggregation of end-users which produce and self-consume their energy within the same geographical perimeter express a new way to use renewable energy represented by the energy communities. The paper identifies the key elements that effect a business model for energy sharing by residential end-users equipped with small-scale renewable generation plants. In addition the simulation analysis investigate the feasibility from the aggregator point of view as well as the individual end-users evaluating also a minimum size for a viable renewable energy community.