Integrating plus energy buildings and districts with the eu energy community framework:Regulatory opportunities, barriers and technological solutions

The aim of this paper is to assess opportunities the Clean Energy Package provides for Plus Energy Buildings (PEBs) and Plus Energy Districts (PEDs) regarding their economic optimization and market integration, possibly leading to new use cases and revenue streams. At the same time, insights into regulatory limitations at the national level in transposing the set of EU Clean Energy Package provisions are shown. The paper illustrates that the concepts of PEBs and PEDs are in principle compatible with the EU energy community concepts, as they relate to technical characteristics while energy communities provide a legal and regulatory framework for the organization and governance of a community, at the same time providing new regulatory space for specific activities and market integration. To realize new use cases, innovative ICT approaches are needed for a range of actors actively involved in creating and operating energy communities as presented in the paper. The paper discusses a range of different options to realize PEBs and PEDs as energy communities based on the H2020 EXCESS project. It concludes, however, that currently the transposition of the Clean Energy Package by the EU Member States is incomplete and limiting and as a consequence, in the short term, the full potential of PEBs and PEDs cannot be exploited

Working Paper Green Investment Schemes: First experiences and lessons learned

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Sharing the gains from EU–Western Balkan renewable electricity cooperation

<p>The EU directive on renewable energy sources enables EU Member States to import renewable electricity from non-EU countries and count these imports towards their renewable energy targets. This article investigates whether such cooperation can be beneficial for selected Western Balkan countries and help them to increase their domestic renewable electricity supply: could wind power exports to the EU from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Albania and the Former Yugoslav Republic (FYR) of Macedonia enable additional investments in domestic generation, without ‘selling out’ the exporter countries’ best generation sites? Or would exports rather conflict with the Western Balkans countries’ domestic efforts to reach their renewable energy targets and increase the domestic electricity supply? For this, a model was developed in Visual Basic to optimize, from the exporters’ perspective, the optimal export level to trigger investments but maximize the wind power supply for domestic use. The analysis takes into account the wind potential, support and price levels in the EU and Western Balkans, investor requirements and financing conditions in the investigated countries.</p> <p>The article shows that cooperation offers a way both for EU Member States and some Western Balkan countries to expand renewable electricity supply and reach their renewable energy targets in a cost-effective way. Partial exports of wind power would allow Serbia, Albania and the FYR of Macedonia to reach their 2020 wind targets. This would not be possible under their existing support schemes or electricity prices. The results indicate that Bosnia and Herzegovina lacks cost-efficient potentials and cannot achieve its wind target in the base case, with or without exports.</p> <p><b>Climate policy relevance</b></p> <p>The results show that wind power cooperation between the EU and Western Balkan countries may simultaneously increase the renewable electricity generation available for the domestic markets in the host countries and help EU Member States to achieve their renewable energy and decarbonization targets. Hence, wind power exports are a way for both the EU and the Western Balkans to provide more carbon-neutral electricity in a cost-effective manner and thus support the achievement of renewable energy and climate targets.</p

Emissions from bioenergy: Improved accounting options and new policy needs

A recent paper by Searchinger highlighted that Annex-I nations do not count CO₂ emissions due to combustion of biomass in their commitments. This is because it is assumed that emissions from use of biomass are accounted for in the land use sector, where they should appear as reductions in carbon stocks. However, if the biomass comes from a non-Annex I country, these reductions are not counted within the Kyoto Protocol. Indeed, even Annex I countries do not necessarily fully account for carbon stock losses associated with bioenergy. This results in overestimating the mitigation benefits of bioenergy. The problem can be rectified by modifying the accounting system, adopting new policy measures or a combination of both. In this paper, we describe possible options and policy measures to improve the accounting of emissions from bioenergy. The pros and cons of the identified solutions are also discussed

Systemvergleich speicherbarer Energieträger aus erneuerbaren Energien

Im Zuge der Transformation zu einer treibhausgasneutralen Gesellschaft in der zweiten Hälfte des 21. Jahrhunderts wird der Einsatz von synthetischen Energieträgern diskutiert, die auf erneuerbarem Strom oder Biomasse basieren. Dieses Vorhaben bewertet die Umweltwirkungen technischer und logistischer Optionen für die Bereitstellung solcher Energieträger anhand von Umweltwirkungskategorien wie Treibhauspotenzial, Versauerung oder Flächenbedarf. Auf Basis ausgewählter Prozessschritte/Verfahren und deren aktuellen und zukünftigen technischen Daten wurde die Herstellung von fünf Produkten (Fischer-Tropsch-Kraftstoffe, Methanol, synthetisches Erdgas, Biomethan und Wasserstoff) betrachtet. Die Verfügbarkeit erneuerbarer Energiequellen wie Wind oder PV, von Rohstoffen wie Kohlenstoff oder Wasser sowie von Transportrouten nach Deutschland bildeten die Standortfaktoren für Deutschland, Europa und den Mittelmeerraum, mittels derer die Verfahren zu Bereitstellungspfaden für diese Energieträger kombiniert wurden. Mit der Methode der Ökobilanz wurden die Umwelteffekte heute und im Jahr 2050 analysiert sowie Kosten für die Anlagenerrichtung und den Betrieb geschätzt. Demnach weisen synthetische Energieträger aufgrund der Nutzung erneuerbarer Energien in der Regel ein deutlich niedrigeres Treibhauspotenzial als heutige fossile Referenzprodukte auf. Die Herstellung der Stromerzeugungsanlagen und damit verbundene Wirtschaftsprozesse – etwa die Stahl- und die Zementproduktion – können jedoch einen relevanten Beitrag zum Treibhauspotenzial leisten, wenn sie nicht ebenfalls treibhausneutral sind. Gleichzeitig führen vor allem die Herstellung der erforderlichen Anlagen gegenüber der fossilen Referenz zu (mitunter deutlich) erhöhten Belastungen in fast allen anderen Wirkungskategorien, insbesondere im Wasserund Flächenbedarf. Diese Studie liefert somit auch Hinweise, welche Umweltwirkungen zukünftig weiter reduziert werden müssen

Are We on the Right Track? Collective Self-Consumption and Energy Communities in the European Union

To accelerate the energy transition, the EU “Clean Energy for all Europeans” package aims to strengthen the involvement of end consumers in the energy market. To this end, together with so-called “active consumers” and provisions for individual and collective renewable energy self-consumption, two types of energy communities were introduced. The EU framework, however, leaves many details of the transposition process to the national level. The corresponding directives were supposed to be transposed by the end of December 2020 (recast Electricity Market Directive, defining active consumers and citizen energy communities) and by the end of June 2021 (Renewable Energy Directive, defining renewables self-consumption and renewable energy communities). In this paper, we critically discuss major developments of the transposition, including questions of the general distinction of the different concepts, governance and ownership, physical expansion, administrative barriers and the overall integration of energy communities into the energy system. The analysis builds on country case studies as well as on previous work by the authors on the status of the transposition process throughout the EU. The paper shows that the national approaches differ greatly and are at very different stages. While basic provisions are in place in most Member States to meet the fundamental EU requirements, the overall integration into the energy system and market is only partly addressed. This concerns, for instance, the analysis of system impacts of energy communities and measures that would allow and support energy system-friendly behaviour. In addition, several practical hurdles need to be overcome. These often relate to administrative requirements such as complex registration and licensing procedures, the need for the involvement of several institutions, or difficult procedures for access to relevant data. The paper concludes that discussed barriers will need to be carefully addressed if the high expectations for the role of energy communities are to be met