Intro

Nota Bene: Due to a limited sample size individual analysis results presently may appear erratic.

The Morphological Box for Energy Communities presents the main characteristics of community energy projects in the EU Member States and shows the frequency of occurrence of the possible design options and the main interdependencies between them in the underlying database.

On the one hand, the tool supports EC developers to capture the recurrent design options and thus identify possible facilitated pathways in specific territorial contexts. On the other hand, it also supports policy makers at different levels to focus on possible weaknesses of the current favourable environment and thus recommend possible areas for potential interventions.

The backend of this tool allows existing ECs, members of nascent ECs and researchers to add their EC projects to the database in order to increase the number of cases included in the database and thus make the results more robust over time.

Background

The 2018/19 Clean Energy Package of the European Union introduced a wide range of policy measures to further advance the Energy Transition, with one focus being low-carbon, renewable energy (RE) to replace fossil-based sources. RE production is typically disaggregated locally, legally, and in terms of ownership of the production facilities. Moreover, RE production technologies are various, and so are their respective usage, investment schemes, investors, geographic and financial properties, and, as a result, their support measures. With a focus on the new regulatory framework of the Directive on the Internal Energy Market (IEMD) and the recast of the Renewable Energy Directive (RED II), we analyse best practice business models for Energy Communities (ECs).

To capture the multitude of pluri-dimensional design perspectives for ECs this online tool provides access to an interactive database, the “Morphological Box for Energy Communities”. The tool enables researchers and policy makers to identify the constellations for participation models that best fit the new EU policy strategy and to show opportunities with regard to combinations underused or not at all exploited yet. The aim of this project is to contribute to the further development of Energy Transition participation models in general and ECs in particular and

General Usage

The morphological box displays a data base of Renewable energy communities (RECs) and Citizen Energy Communities (CECs) across the EU Member States. Cases are described by 11 characteristics, shown as the left aligned headlines for each of the box’s rows. Each row contains design options corresponding to the given characteristic. For each case contained in the database, a design option chosen is highlighted in colour), or if not applied, marked white.

There are three options for analysis under the “Select A Case” menu above the box:

1. Choosing an individual case, e.g., “Isle of Eigg”: All dark boxes indicate the design options chosen by the project providing a “design map” of the project.
2. Selecting “Filter” to analyse the most prevalent combinations across the entire dataset: The combinations that are most often chosen by the cases of the entire dataset are shown with those most often chosen highlighted in the darkest colour shade; the characteristic on the top line is the point of departure, but the order can be changed by the user.
3. Starting with one characteristic as point of departure, e.g., “Conversion Technology” selecting a specific filter e.g., “Photovoltaics”: The system displays how the selected design option is most prevalently connected across the dataset with those of other characteristics (prevalence is indicated in different shades of colour, i.e., the darker the more cases, the lighter the less cases; white boxes indicate that they are unrelated to the selected design option in the dataset).

For all options the tree indicates the most prevalent paths of chosen design options across the eleven characteristics. The functions “filter”, “order” and “tree” can be removed and reset to the default.

Details

Clicking a design option filters the data base for all cases that have used (left click) or not used (right click) the respective design option. Filtering for one of the design options, all cases that do not share this design option value are dropped. By selecting, say, design option “households” with the characteristic “application sector” as point of departure, the software iterates through all cases, placing those that share the same value considering “households” (set or not set) in the filter results. From the remaining cases in the filter results, for each characteristic, the frequency of occurrence is shown in different shades of colour.

For each characteristic, the most frequently applied design options are connected with semi-transparent lines. The thickness of these lines represents the skewness (or unevenness of the distribution) per characteristic, e.g., whether the respective design options are evenly distributed across their characteristic, or unevenly. For example, if the above-mentioned filtered cases for selection “households” are mostly “large” in terms of “financial volume”, then the line to that design option is bold. For characteristic “support”, however, the most frequent design option is “investment”, but still encompasses only 28% of the filter cases, so the line is thinner. In constellations where two or more design options have the same top value as “most frequently used”, multiple lines are drawn.

Overall, the line combinations display prevalent business models consisting of different combinations of design options for the different characteristics. For example, filtering with the characteristic (row) “application sector” as point of departure and by design option (cell) “households” (which is then highlighted to mark that this is the filter of the present analysis), one sees that most projects involving consumer co-ownership are photovoltaics (PV) projects (“conversion technology”), aim at citizens (“cooperating partner/customer”), and are situated in rural areas (“geography”). Furthermore, it can be seen that these projects are usually combined with energy efficiency (EE) measures, and are organized as coops (one-member-one-vote), just to mention a few characteristics. Note that the classification of the financial volume (in Euro) as small, medium, or large depends on conversion and application technology and is based on the rules shown in the following table:

User interface

There are several REC/CEC cases already stored in the data base. You can select cases from the dropdown menu and inspect their properties. Click design options using the left mouse button to filter all cases for those whose respective design option is set, or click using the right mouse button to filter all cases for those whose respective design option is not set. After filtering, the filter results are shown. For each row, the design options are coloured in different shades of colour (customizable using the “configure” button), showing the distribution of design options used by the filtered cases.

Also, a “tree” connecting the most dominantly used design options by the filtered REC/CEC cases from row to row is generated. The row ordering is changeable. You can use the mouse wheel to roll the figurative “barrel” onto which the box is attached, or you can hold and drag rows around by their row headline (the characteristic). Finally, be sure to check the “configure” menu to customize the user interface to your needs.

Characteristics

1. Conversion Technology
2. Application Technology
3. Cooperating Partner/Customer
4. Role in Value Chain
5. Application Sector
6. Geography
7. Financial Volume
8. Public Investor/Co-Owner
9. Private Investor/Co-Owner
10. Ownership Structure and Voting Rights
11. Support

Conversion Technology

The technology used to transform energy from an energy source into directly usable energy (mostly, electricity).

• Photovoltaics: Electricity generation by solar PV panels.
• Combustion system: Electricity generators driven by burning fuel.
• Solar thermal collectors: Direct heat generation by solar power.
• Windturbines: Electricity generation by wind turbines.
• Hydroturbines: Electricity generation by hydro turbines (rivers, but also pump storage).
• Heat pumps: Electricity driven transfer of thermal energy, mostly from the outside using a refrigeration cycle.
• Tidal/wave conversion: Electricity generation by tidal and/or wave driven generators.
• Power to X conversion: Transforms electricity to gas, fuel (e.g. methane or hydrogen), or others, mostly used for storage purposes.
• CSP: Concentrated solar power using mirrors.
• Fossil (+CCS/U): CCS = carbon capture and storage, CCU = carbon capture and utilization.

Application Technology

The application technologies comprise both the physical infrastructure and the automation technology required to support e.g. greater systems integration, data collection and dissemination of system resources, and effective and efficient demand response.

• Water/building heating/cooling: Heating and/or cooling of water and/or buildings.
• Network/own grid: Projects that mostly aim at feeding into the grid (instead of self-usage) or operate an own grid.
• Lighting: Produced energy is mostly used for lighting purposes.
• Process heating/cooling (incl. mechanical): Putting process heat or cold to use, including the usage of heat for mechanical purposes (e.g. to drive a generator producing electricity).
• Information/communication technology: Energy is used mostly for IT/communication applications.
• Demand side management:Project provide either information for demand side management and/or provide demand driven grid services.
• Mobility: Energy is used for all kinds of mobility applications, including electric cars.
• Energy efficiency measures: Projects aim at energy efficiency such as house insolation or electricity efficiency improvements.
• Storage: All kinds of storage, e.g. pump storage.

Cooperating Partner/Customer

Provides clarity regarding the partners that are involved in collective prosumer groups.

• Citizens: Projects provide services to citizens or citizens are cooperating partners.
• Municipality: Municipalities cooperate and/or are provided with energy/services.
• Utility: Utilities cooperate or are receivers/carriers of energy flow.
• Microenterprise: Very small corporations, mostly legally defined as employing nine people or fewer.
• SME: Small and medium-sized enterprises.
• Large corporation: Corporations that are larger than SME by local definition.
• Agriculture and forestry: Partners/customers are in the agricultural and/or forestry sector.

Role in Value Chain

Allows to depict design possibilities along the traditional value chain elements that are generation, distribution, retail, but also emerging roles like e.g. that of an aggregator.

• Generation: The project encompasses energy/electricity generation.
• Distribution: The project deals with energy distribution, either internally or to external recipients.
• Retail: The project is an energy retailer.
• Aggregation: The project deals with energy aggregation.
• Asset operation: The project provides services in asset operation.
• Digital platform provider: The project provides and/or operates a digital energy platform of some kind.
• Trading: The project provides energy trading services.
• Flexibility options provider: The project provides surplus supply and/or demand flexibility, e.g. a storage operator.
• Consumption: Projects may be focused on energy consumption.
• Contracting: Projects operate or help with energy contracting.

Application Sector

Where the technology and/or the generated energy is applied.

• Households: The project provides to private households.
• Agriculture/forestry: The project addresses agricultural and/or forestry receivers.
• Commercial/industry: The project services commercial applicants and/or industrial recipients.
• Public: The project provides to the public.

Geography

Helps to distinguish between geographically rural, urban and remote/off grid models.

• Rural: The project is situated in a rural area.
• Urban: The project is located in an urban area.
• Remote/off grid: The project is remote and/or an off-grid solution.

Financial Volume

Characterizes a project’s financial volume (in Euro) as small, medium, or large. Note that the classification as one of those three depends on the conversion technology/technologies used and the application technology/technologies. For example, for a photovoltaics project, other size criteria are to be applied than for a hydro turbine project. See “general usage” section in the help menu for more information.

• Small: Given its conversion/application properties, the project is considered to be small.
• Medium: Given its conversion/application properties, the project is considered to be medium sized.
• Large: Given its conversion/application properties, the project is considered to be large.

Public Investor/Co-Owner

In order to become a key actor on energy markets, collective prosumer groups should include heterogeneous investors, while retaining the benefits of individual consumer participation. This characteristic provides several design options to choose from as a model for public co-ownership.

• Municipality: The public investor/co-owner is a municipality.
• Municipal corporation: The public investor/co-owner is a municipal corporation.
• Public utility: The public investor/co-owner is a public utility (not to be confused with a private/commercial utility).
• State bank: The public investor/co-owner is a state bank (this concerns co-ownership, state loans or any kind of similar support should be stated in the ‘support’ characteristic).
• Government agency: The public investor/co-owner is a government agency.
• Other state corporations: Other public investors/co-owners not mentioned above.

Private Investor/Co-Owner

Provides room for private renewable energy (RE) investments which comprise private utilities, commercial banks and institutional investors like, e.g., private energy firms and private non-energy firms.

• Citizens: Citizens are private investors and/or co-owners.
• Private energy firm: The project is co-owned by a private energy firm.
• Commercial bank: The private investor/co-owner is a state bank (this concerns co-ownership, state loans or any kind of similar support should be stated in the ‘support’ characteristic).
• Private non-energy firm: The private investor/co-owner is a private form otherwise not concerned with energy topics.
• Private utility: The private investor/co-owner is a private utility (not to be confused with a public/municipal utility).
• Institutional investor: The private investor/co-owner is an institutional investor (e.g. a venture capitalist).
• NGO: The private investor/co-owner is a nongovernmental organization.

Ownership Structure and Voting Rights

The question of the weight of voting rights of individual members/shareholders in energy communities depends on the combination of the ownership structure and the type of organisation of the legal entity. Here, several design options cover almost all possible models.

• Coop (one member, one vote): The typical coop model where each member has one vote (e.g. voting right cannot be unevenly distributed among members, even if capital shares are uneven.)
• Coop permitting „investing members“: A coop model where investing members are allowed (that either have no voting rights or elevated voting rights or other specific characteristics).
• Publicly held corp. (with disperse ownership): A publicly held corporation that comprises disperse ownership.
• Publicly held corp. (with anchor shareholder): A publicly held corporation that has at least one anchor shareholder.
• Privately held corp. (family business): A privately held corporation; this mostly applies to family businesses.
• Privately held corp. (with dominating shareholder): A privately held corporation, but with at least one dominating shareholder.
• 100% daughter corporation: The project is a legal entity that is entirely controlled by another legal entity.
• Corporation with non-voting shares: The project has shares that do not provide voting rights to their possessors.
• Limited partnership: The project is part of a limited partnership.

Support

The Energy Transition is driven by policies and respective incentives that address barriers and market failures of energy use and provision. Thus, supportive policies and regulations are key to bring about changes, including changes in actors of energy services.

• Network and advisory: Consultancy, networking, education.
• Administrative: One-stop-shop (all approval and administrative processes at one authority), impact assessment (environment), grid access (regulations).
• Investment: Financial support such as grants, guarantees for credits, fiscal support such as tax credits for investments, subordinated loans of development banks.
• Operational: Remuneration such as feed-in tariffs or premiums, fiscal and financial support such as tax credits, grace periods subsidised interest rates, energy sharing and net-metering affecting operations, reduced grid fees.
• Other regulatory support: Feed-in priority, Renewable Energy Heat Act, RE quota with RE certificates.
• Other non-defined: None of the above or possibly country-specific.
• None: None of the above.