This book draws on social science analysis to understand the ongoing dynamics within and surrounding local energy communities in reliably electrified countries: Belgium, Canada, Colombia, France, Germany, India, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
It offers a comprehensive overview of recent results and thus outlines a diversity of drivers and levers for scaling up energy communities or, at least, local energy sharing. Analysing the main types of energy communities such as collective self-consumption, citizen cooperatives and peer-to-peer digital platforms, the book does not only raise new questions for social scientists, but also offers a comprehensive overview for all those contributing to the circular economy and the decentralization of energy production in inhabited areas where energy consumption is concentrated. This book provides input for the ongoing debates in many European countries implementing the national law on the European directives for energy communities. Furthermore, without evading the antagonism between cooperative and market approaches, or the contradictions between different issues, the book outlines the innovative decision-making tools that can facilitate the development of local energy production and sharing systems.
As well as being of interest to postgraduates and researchers in the field of energy studies, this book will be vital to energy professionals looking to support local energy communities’ decision-making and design, who wish to consider sociological, organizational and territorial dimensions.
Author(s): Gilles Debizet, Marta Pappalardo, Frédéric Wurtz
Series: Routledge Explorations in Energy Studies
Publisher: Routledge/Earthscan
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 376
City: London
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
List of contributors
Preface
Origin of the book
Framework of the book
Acknowledgements
Social sciences introduction. Local energy communities: state of the art and chapters’ cross-sectional analysis
Engineering sciences introduction. Local energy Communities: transversal reading
SECTION A: INTRODUCTION Motivations and internal/local dynamics of energy sharing communities
A.1 Inhabitants’ activities and needs relative to renewable energy pooling and sharing: a prospective scenario approach
A.2 Shared geothermal energy projects in Montreal: the importance of pre-existing collective action spaces
A.3 Energy communities and commons: rethinking collective action through inhabited spaces
A.4 Anticipating energy communities in urban projects: challenges and limits
SECTION B: INTRODUCTION Collective self-consumption: regulatory framework set-up and controversies
B.1 Regulatory framework of collective self-consumption operations: comparative study France, Spain, Germany
B.2 The controversial emergence of collective self-consumption in France
SECTION C: INTRODUCTION Citizen cooperatives: inter-scalar idealizing, teaching and structuring for scaling up
C.1 Trajectories of renewable energy communities: between democratic processes and economic constraints
C.2 Emergence and transformation of Enercoop: the French network of electricity supply cooperatives as a new social economy initiative
C.3 Cooperation within and the institutionalization of participatory renewable energy projects in France: a focus on co-developed citizen, public, and private partnership projects
SECTION D: INTRODUCTION Digital services for peer-to-peer communities: regulatory framework and market
D.1 Emerging digital business models for energy communities: enablers for citizen participation in the energy transition? – Perspectives from Germany
D.2 Digital technologies for consumer-centred energy markets: opportunities and risks of an energy internet
D.3 Digital energy trading platforms: an economic analysis
SECTION E: INTRODUCTION Design energy projects for multi-stakeholders’ communities: decision support tools
E.1 Proposal to take into account stakeholders’ motivations in models of optimization decision support tools
E.2 Decision support for technical design of on-the-spot renewable energy projects involving several stakeholders
Index
