Over the last years, the concept of energy communities has gained popularity. They are increasingly perceived as a citizen empowerment opportunity, and a mean to involve them in renewable energy deployment. Yet, deployment of energy communities remains limited. Among the explanatory factors of this observation, one can cite the lack of appropriate legislation, but also the lack of knowledge (of citizen but also professionals) around new forms of business models, with an ensured added value for all stakeholders.
The research results presented here have been obtained through the work conducted in R2EC (Regional Renewable Energy Cells) ERANet project, which intends to evaluate revenue model(s) for an energy community (EC) created in a neighborhood of the municipality of Flobecq (Wallonia, Belgium). The objective is also to evaluate to which extent this model could be replicated in similar settings, elsewhere in Wallonia.
Results show that the local regulation defining renewable energy communities should be adapted, as it is currently too restrictive and prevents sufficient economic value creation to make shared energy generation concepts viable. Peer-to-peer exchange, currently excluded from regulatory frameworks, was identified by our research as a non-optimal business model given the current context in Wallonia (i.e., net-metering).
Keywords: Economic Analysis, Modelling, PV System
AUTHORS: Aleman Monica, Bosch Elina, Macé Philippe
This paper was published during WCPEC-8, it can also be found here.