As 2024 drew to a close and with the festive season fast approaching, GRITH managed to fit another webinar in on 16th December.
In this last joint working session of the year, the partners and invited experts revisited the subject of Energy Communities, a challenging aspect of the energy transition on industrial sites and business parks.
Energy Communities - IDeta
Experiences in Wallonia
First of all, Aurelie Dubois – working at IDeta (Picardi) shared her experience with initiating a number of energy community projects in Wallonia near Lille where, since 2023, such energy cooperations are now authorized. These are specific legal entities designed to benefit its participants or local territories environmentally, economically or socially rather than for financial profit. There are two types: Renewable Energy Community (REC) and Citizen Energy Community (CEC) (limited to geographic parameters.)
Energy sharing models - IDeta
Energy sharing models
There are a number of possibilites regarding the design of an energy sharing model: RECs, CECs, collective self-consumption, individual self-consumption, peer to peer. Parameters for an Energy Community include:
- Composed of producers and consumers
- Organized as a legal entity
- Locally produced energy is consumed on site (REC is 100% renewable)
- Pooled and synchronized production and consumption
- Managed as a cooperative with a delegated management
A small scale, cheaper energy sharing model could be developed around collective self-consumption within one building or peer to peer.
- No legal entity needed – contracts between participants and producer
- Consumption within the same building – no regulatory authorization required.
- Peer to peer – authorization from the regulator.
During the ensuing discussions and exchange amongst GRITH colleagues it became clear that legislation is limiting in many cases and it remains a barrier for developing a suitable framework.
GRITH Webinar on Smart Energy Communities in Drenthe
Shared vision, scalable solutions
Next up, Irin Bouwman from the Province of Drenthe presented the Dutch approach in the northern Netherlands, historically a pioneering region in terms of energy. The current grid congestion here is a huge challenge but also a great opportunity to discover solutions for the development of energy hubs and create the energy system of the future. Through experience and lessons learned, a number of key takeaways have been filtered out:
- Customized services, main drivers are cost reductions and self-sufficiency.
- Must not be too complicated (easy to use).
- Main motivator is money savings – new solutions must be more cost effective.
- The market itself must adapt (moving towards decentralized solutions.
- We need a common vision, a common protocol and coordinated swift installation.
New legislation to empower communities will help. In Drenthe, GRITH is stimulating lighthouse projects, cooperating and creating a community – developing a shared vision while looking for market-ready scalable solutions.
Energy Management Platform - Distro Energy
Energy Management Platform
Last but not least, Kennard Brandenburg from Distro Energypresented the Energy Management Platform. They provide a collaborative digital platform that empowers users to share locally generated renewable energy to reduce grid congestion and lower costs. Here, experiences are shared with a view to unlocking the power of local peer to peer energy exchange and renewables are decentralized in a micro-grid system.
There are different approaches and potential solutions under development but more incentives from government authorities are needed to encourage business parks and industrial sites.
EMS Data & Insights
Kennard shared some key insights with the participants:
- Through smart collaboration and optimization on a local level using real time measurements, energy consumption can be forecasted and, by anticipating needs and pricing, a flexible, democratic pricing system is created for the market – minimizing the imbalance.
- By using price incentives and mechanisms to collaborate locally, cost improvement and maximization of consumption by ‘prosumers’ can increase greatly – up to 98%.
- Proper insights provide the necessary information. With an EMS, Community Dashboards show the status, contributors and limitations, also providing input for future expansion possibilities.
Closing remarks from GRITH’s ‘Mr. Energy’ at the Province of Drenthe, Henk Slabbekoorn: “The three presentations fit seamlessly together.The workshop and knowledge exchange was very fruitful and promises a lot for the consortium’s continued collaboration in the new year.”