The energy system is undergoing a major transformation where the dependence on fossil fuels needs to be replaced with solely sources of renewable energy. The increased share of renewable intermittent electricity production, together with urbanization, electrification, and digitalization, creates challenges for the operation security in the electricity system. Moving from a centralized to a decentralized electricity system is considered a solution to face the challenges of the energy system. In EU's Clean Energy Package, the concept of energy communities emerged to achieve decentralized energy systems. Energy communities lack a clear definition, but overall, it can be explained as a collaboration between local stakeholders who produce, consume, and manage their own energy systems to create economic, environmental, and social benefits. In this study, the definition of energy communities is broad and is defined as a local area where electricity is shared between at least two buildings through a direct current grid or virtually through smart meters. As the concept is underdeveloped and lacks a clear enabling framework, the purpose of this study is to investigate how energy communities are developing in Sweden today. The focus of the study is to examine the roles of actors in the development of energy communities and the driving forces they have, the challenges and associated solutions that actors have encountered, and the system benefits that energy communities can contribute to. The results show that roles in an energy community are general and can be taken by different types of actors depending on local conditions, interests and knowledge. Despite the variation of roles, the roles of an aggregator, knowledge bank, and a project manager are essential for the development of energy communities. The drivers for developing energy communities are closely linked to the project manager and their internal goals within the organization. Drivers are largely dependent on the roles of the actors within the energy community, where for example electricity grid companies’ focus on creating a system perspective of the energy community's position and role in the energy system. In summary, the results show that the biggest drivers are to reduce electricity grid costs and to balance load of the electricity grid. Several different types of challenges are mentioned by the interviewees, where the challenges can be divided into technical, economic, social, and legislative. The most debated challenge in literature and in the interviews are legislative challenges, where legislation is considered unclear by most interviewees. Important solutions that are mentioned are to create consensus and cooperation between actors and to follow the development to understand the opportunities and consequences of energy communities. The system benefits that energy communities can create for the electricity system are, based on the literature and on the results from the survey and interview study, difficult to define. Several projects are still under development, which means that system benefits have not yet been documented and therefore rely heavily on thoughts about future development. Common system benefits mentioned in this study are that energy communities can relieve the main electricity grid by a decrease in power outtake and providing flexibility services as well as increasing the total share of renewable energy sources.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:liu-194872 |
| Date | January 2023 |
| Creators | Lindberg, Petra, Ljungberg, Linnea |
| Publisher | Linköpings universitet, Energisystem |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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