Reviewing and Exploring the Qualitative Impacts That Different Market and Regulatory Measures Can Have on Encouraging Energy Communities Based on Their Organizational Structure

Josh Eichman, Marc Torrecillas Castelló and Cristina Corchero
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Josh Eichman: Catalonia Institute for Energy Research (IREC), Jardins de les Dones de Negre 1, 2, 08930 Sant Adrià de Besòs, Barcelona, Spain
Marc Torrecillas Castelló: Catalonia Institute for Energy Research (IREC), Jardins de les Dones de Negre 1, 2, 08930 Sant Adrià de Besòs, Barcelona, Spain
Cristina Corchero: Department Statistics and Operations Research, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya—BarcelonaTech (UPC), Ed. C5, D221, c. Jordi Girona, 1-3, 08034 Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

Energies, 2022, vol. 15, issue 6, 1-19

Abstract: The emergence of energy communities represents a promising option to democratize the energy system by empowering consumers to take a more active role. This can aid in achieving energy and environmental goals as well as encouraging more equitable distribution of costs and revenues between all parties on the energy system. Despite this potential, energy communities are still a nascent solution, the success of which is heavily influenced by regulations. As a result, there are a wide variety of organizational structures for energy communities at this time. This paper provides a review of the policy landscape in Spain as it relates to energy communities. This work also presents a formalized method for characterizing different energy community structures and provides a qualitative assessment of the impacts of different measures to encourage energy communities with respect to their organizational structure. Findings suggest that many market-focused measures, including wholesale, local flexibility, capacity, and multisector market measures favor larger, more integrated communities, while regulatory, legal, and organizational measures, including peer-to-peer trading, aggregation, and self-consumption favor smaller, more distributed communities. Additionally, when developing policies to encourage the growth of energy communities, policymakers should be cognizant of the progression of policies in the context of the desired outcomes for energy community growth specific to the region or country and its goals.

Keywords: energy community; citizen energy community; renewable energy community; market measures; regulatory measures; organizational structure; implementation strategies; implementation measures; policymakers (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: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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