Energy communities are booming. Guntram Preßmair, specialist for energy communities at “e7 energy innovation & engineering”, an engineering office for energy and environmental technology, knows what they are, how they are founded and much more.
Using regional renewable resources, maximizing social benefits and operating sustainably together – this is exactly what energy communities, which have been able to be founded in Austria for more than three years, make possible. “There are three forms,” says Guntram Preßmair, research associate specializing in energy communities at “e7 energy innovation & engineering”.
Since 2017, residents of an apartment building have been able to use the electricity generated by a communal photovoltaic system, for example, themselves as a “communal generation plant” (GEA). Since 2021, the self-generated electricity can also be traded and consumed locally and regionally across property boundaries by a renewable energy community (EEG).
Supra-regional, nationwide solutions in the form of citizen energy communities (BEG) are now also possible. “If the parents have a PV system at their family home in Vorarlberg, they can now use this electricity to supply their son in Burgenland,” says Preßmair.
Real boom
In the past two years, energy communities have really taken off: While there were just 165 energy communities across Austria at the end of 2022, one year later there were already 2,130 community generation plants, 1,550 renewable energy communities and 220 citizen energy communities registered. There is no end to the boom in sight: according to preliminary figures, around 250 GEAs, 2,100 EEGs and 350 BEGs were connected to the Energy Data Exchange (EDA) at the end of July.
Who can set up energy communities?
“In a community generation system, the residents of a multi-party building join forces,” says Preßmair. Renewable energy communities, in turn, can be founded by natural persons, municipalities, legal entities of local authorities and small and medium-sized enterprises. “Large corporations can only act as service providers,” says the expert.
By contrast, anyone – from private individuals to large companies – can be on board with citizen energy communities.
Requirements for the establishment of energy communities
If you want to share the electricity in your home, all you have to do is register with the grid operator as a household community. “You should conclude an installation and operating contract with each other, in which, among other things, the key according to which the electricity is shared is regulated,” says Preßmair.
Renewable and citizen energy communities, on the other hand, require their own legal personality and are therefore usually organized as an association or cooperative. Once the legal entity has been established, the community must register on the website www.ebUtilities.at and receives a market partner ID in return. “Once both the community and the individual participants have concluded a contract with the market partner and the participants have been registered in the EDA user portal, registration as an energy community is complete,” explains Preßmair.
Various advantages
Energy communities have a positive impact on various levels: They make it possible to share self-generated renewable energy with neighbors, family and beyond. This creates independence, but also more togetherness with the community. They also raise awareness of the generation and consumption of renewable electricity and accelerate the transition to decentralized renewable energy. There are also economic benefits: “With shared generation plants, you save the grid fee for the locally generated energy in its entirety, while a reduced grid fee applies to renewable energy communities,” says Preßmair.
Not entirely self-sufficient
However, anyone who thinks they can terminate their contract with a traditional energy supplier as part of an energy community is mistaken. “An energy community is an additional joint energy supply,” says Preßmair.
Subsidies for start-ups
With the “Energy Communities 2024” funding program, the Climate and Energy Fund continues to support the establishment of innovative communities that can serve as role models and model projects with an innovative character and require more planning. The projects must meet a set of technological, social, organizational and ecological criteria such as the use of different generation technologies, the connection with e-mobility, the addressing of energy poverty or concrete measures to take gender and diversity into account.
Funding is provided for consulting services, information events, planning work and environmental studies, among other things. Two million euros are available in the current call for proposals, endowed with funds from the Ministry of Climate Protection (BMK); the maximum funding per funding recipient (incl. bonus) is 20,000 euros.
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