Energy Communities - empowering decentralized prosumers of renewable energy

Abstract

It is not a new insight, but climate crisis and the apparent unreliability of oil and natural gas supplies have made it more pressing than ever: We must reduce the reliance on fossile energy and increase the use of renewables. Renewable energy has the obvious benefit of decentralized production possibilities, but the structural change from traditional hierarchical energy supply grids with centrally controlled generation to an interaction of steadily growing, decentralized, volatile producers requires novel control concepts. This becomes even more obvious when considering the contributions of individual, private prosumers on the one hand and the limitations of the distribution grid on the other hand. Energy communities are an important step towards overcoming these limitations. In contrast to simple aggregation, load management or self-consumption optimization of individual customers, cooperative bundling of different prosumers in grid segments may help to optimize the overall state of the grid. This also makes energy communities important new partners for distribution system operators. The keynote will review the background of this relatively novel concept, as well as technical and organizational issues and challenges around its implementation.