Urban energy community between recommendation and perspective

Abstract

This paper approaches the impact of the new provisions of the new energy market directive on passive consumers and their transformation into active consumers. They can participate in demand response or energy efficiency schemes provided that these activities do not constitute their primary commercial or professional activity. These active consumers benefit from transparent network tariffs, in a nondiscriminatory manner and reflecting the costs, separately calculated for the energy inserted into the network and for the energy used from the network. Moreover, these are also the key element of local energy communities. The local energy communities, according to IEM Recast, are entitled to own, establish or lease community networks and to autonomously manage them, benefit from a non-discriminatory treatment regarding their activities, rights and obligations as final customers, generators, distribution system operators or aggregators. This impact is achieved through a case study analyzing the extent to which it is technically possible and justified from an economic point of view to accomplish at each block level and ultimately for the lodger’s association of a local energy community promoted by this directive and energy community's implications on the energy distributor.