The long term future for community energy in Great Britain: A co-created vision of a thriving sector and steps towards realising it

Braunholtz-Speight, Tim; McLachlan, Carly; Mander, Sarah; Hannon, Matthew; Hardy, Jeffrey; Cairns, Iain; Sharmina, Maria; Manderson, Edward

doi:10.1016/j.erss.2021.102044

Cited by 24 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 37 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Ref. [13] conducted a societal study to obtain a vision of future energy community-based energy systems. The work highlighted the importance of government actions and policymakers, both at national and local levels, in order to develop future energy communities.…”

Section: B Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…) In (13), S represents the net present worth of the cumulated cost savings, Sa is the annual savings in euros, n shows the length of the analysis period in years and r is the discount rate [39], [40]. The discount rate is calculated based on the cost of the capital employed in the innovation.…”

Section: B Economic Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The typical discount rate is between 10 to 30 percent depending on the risky nature of the ventures. Applying (13) to analyze the payback period provides an overview of the economic viability of the community network proposal in this research. The results are summarized in Table II.…”

Section: B Economic Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Increasing Self-Sufficiency of Energy Community by Common Thermal Energy Storage

2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Customers energy consumption pattern affects directly the grid burden, especially during peak hours. In recent years, many different control methods have been proposed to shift the energy consumption to off-peak hours through demand response (DR) management. In order to have effective DR energy management, optimization has a key role. Thus, increasing the benefits for the customers and encouraging them to consider the new controlling approaches in their daily energy consumption pattern is needed for increased customer participation. On the other hand, renewables are integrated with the buildings to decrease the buildings' energy costs and dependency on the grid utilities. This study moves a step further and considers a few numbers of neighboring houses as an energy community. The community commits to sharing their produced energy from the individual distributed solar system with each other and increasing their energy selfsufficiency by minimizing the import and export of power from/to the grid. This research focuses on applying common electric heat energy storage when community's own solar PV generation is used to thermal energy generation/storing in heat storage and compares it with the case in which each house has its own distributed thermal energy storage. Then, different sized thermal storages are tested for the community to find the best solution. The results are compared in terms of import and export of energy, annual costs and the payback-time. It is concluded that the community with common thermal energy storage could decrease the energy exchange with the grid and the payback-time of the investments could be reduced for the community members.INDEX TERMS Demand response, energy community, renewable energy resources, sustainable energy community, thermal energy storage

show abstract

Section: B Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: B Economic Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Increasing Self-Sufficiency of Energy Community by Common Thermal Energy Storage

2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Even so, there remains a shortage of assessments that are backed by real-life data from multiple demonstration projects in the UK to help establish the intrinsic value of local community energy structures. Recent systematic reviews of community energy research and its agendas undertaken in 2016 [17], 2018 [18],…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Socio-Economic Benefits in Community Energy Structures

Kiamba

Rodrigues

Marsh³

et al. 2022

Sustainability

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this paper, the authors examine how a community energy group in the Meadows area of Nottingham in the UK adopted a model of local energy generation and storage as a means of combatting climate change, improving energy efficiency, enhancing energy security, and reducing fuel poverty. By prioritising local needs and managing expectations, this approach was seen to unite community members in acting on energy challenges while increasing knowledge, understanding, and awareness of energy issues in general. The results of the survey indicated that the respondents had a significantly high level of climate awareness (94%) and support for community energy (90%). Furthermore, evidence of the impacts and efficiencies of community energy and subsequent socio-economic benefits were identified, including 89% of respondents reporting a reduction in energy costs and 67% of respondents increasing their self-consumption. Importantly, the barriers experienced when trying to maximise the identified socio-economic benefits are highlighted and general recommendations given.

show abstract

“…Starting from a systemic perspective, researchers have proposed a methodology for designing 100% renewable smart energy systems [37]; others have explored the complex transition towards smart and local energy systems, considering the interaction between the incumbent regime (i.e. prevailing centralised ways of energy provision), changing trends and unexpected events, and social and/or technical innovations [13,38]; some authors have proposed a conceptual framework for estimating energy demand and supply more accurately, so as to inform energy transitions at local level appropriately [39]. Overall, little attention has been paid directly to LEBs and their finances from a sectoral perspective, and the implications for future development.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Local energy businesses in the United Kingdom: Clusters and localism determinants based on financial ratios

González

Webb

Sharmina

et al. 2022

Energy

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper presents the first financial analysis of the United Kingdom's local energy business sector. This analysis 17 relies on financial ratios and degrees of localism as inputs for descriptive statistics, cluster, and canonical 18 discriminant analyses. Our findings suggest that privately-owned energy businesses, typically with limited 19 commitments to localities, account for the great majority of sectoral assets and turnover, and are in comparatively 20 good financial condition. Highly-local energy businesses typically have low profitability and a high reliance on 21 debt. The latter is the key variable differentiating them from other less local energy businesses. Moreover, we find 22 financial commonalities within different groups of local energy businesses, which correlate with their specific 23 level of localism. In the context of increasing digitalisation in energy markets, more technological innovation may 24 help strengthen local energy businesses' revenue sources and value creation. Further research is needed in terms 25 of investability, specific financing terms and conditions, and geographical aspects of value creation, retention, and 26 delivery to localities. This work can improve the understanding of sectoral dynamics and development needs, with 27 value for policy making to incentivise investment in this emerging sector.

show abstract

The long term future for community energy in Great Britain: A co-created vision of a thriving sector and steps towards realising it

Cited by 24 publications

References 37 publications

Increasing Self-Sufficiency of Energy Community by Common Thermal Energy Storage

Increasing Self-Sufficiency of Energy Community by Common Thermal Energy Storage

Socio-Economic Benefits in Community Energy Structures

Local energy businesses in the United Kingdom: Clusters and localism determinants based on financial ratios

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About