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

Sebastian Zwickl-Bernhard and Hans Auer
Additional contact information
Sebastian Zwickl-Bernhard: Energy Economics Group (EEG), Technische Universität Wien, Gusshausstraße 25-29, E370-3, 1040 Vienna, Austria
Hans Auer: Energy Economics Group (EEG), Technische Universität Wien, Gusshausstraße 25-29, E370-3, 1040 Vienna, Austria

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 2, 1-22

Abstract: 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.

Keywords: energy communities; low-carbon energy systems; local energy technology portfolio; small-scale batteries; local self-consumption; upscaling (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/2/305/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/2/305/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:2:p:305-:d:476748

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().