Integrated Local Energy Communities


Book Description

Introducing a framework for obtaining and maintaining renewable energy security at the local community level Local energy communities are a framework for assembling and coordinating major stakeholders, individual, corporate, and institutional, in the pursuit of long-term renewable energy and carbon-free projects in a given area. They are aimed at community benefits rather than profit, and have become an invaluable tool in the fight to reimagine the global energy grid, one community at a time. With climate change making this fight ever more urgent, integrated local energy communities (ILECs) that enhance the previous concept through a multi-carrier systems’ approach have never been a more important social force. Integrated Local Energy Communities offers a framework for designing, planning, and operating communities from end to end. Incorporating regulatory and policy issues, the mechanics of local multi-carrier energy systems, social aspects and more, it provides viable solutions to one of the most urgent energy challenges of our time. The result is an indispensable contribution to a potentially transformative process. Integrated Local Energy Communities readers will also find: Comprehensive coverage of all types of energy conversion technologies and processes Analysis of the entire value chain, from concepts to planning and operation Discussion of all key factors for integrating the ILEC energy paradigm Integrated Local Energy Communities is ideal for energy engineers, electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, engineering scientists working in consultancy and industry, as well as the libraries that serve them.




Local Energy Autonomy


Book Description

In recent years, interest for local energy production, supply and consumption has increased in academic and public debates. In particular, contemporary energy transition discourses and strategies often emphasize the search for increased local energy autonomy, a phrase which can refer to a diverse range of configurations, both in terms of the spaces and scales of the local territory considered and in terms of what is meant by energy autonomy. This book explores policies, projects and processes aimed at increased local energy autonomy, with a particular focus on their spatial, infrastructural and political dimensions. In doing so, the authors – Sabine Barles, Bruno Barroca, Guilhem Blanchard, Benoit Boutaud, Arwen Colell, Gilles Debizet, Ariane Debourdeau, Laure Dobigny, Florian Dupont, Zélia Hampikian, Sylvy Jaglin, Allan Jones, Raphael Ménard, Alain Nadaï, Angela Pohlmann, Cyril Roger-Lacan, Eric Vidalenc – improve our understanding of the always partial and controversial processes of energy relocation that articulate forms of local metabolic self-sufficiency, socio-technical decentralization and political empowerment. Comprising fifteen chapters, the book is divided into four parts: Governance and Actors; Urban Projects and Energy Systems; Energy Communities; and The Challenges of Energy Autonomy.




Energy Communities


Book Description

Energy Communities explores core potential systemic benefits and costs in engaging consumers into communities, particularly relating to energy transition. The book evaluates the conditions under which energy communities might be regarded as customer-centered, market-driven and welfare-enhancing. The book also reviews the issue of prevalence and sustainability of energy communities and whether these features are likely to change as opportunities for distributed energy grow. Sections cover the identification of welfare considerations for citizens and for society on a local and national level, and from social, economic and ecological perspectives, while also considering different community designs and evolving business models. - Defines and conceptualizes the energy community for the current generation of researchers and practitioners facing the energy transition - Explores the main benefits and challenges in forming energy communities and to what extent they are welfare-enhancing - Examines under what terms, conditions, regulations or policies energy communities can be beneficially and successfully organized and why - Reviews the combination of business models and forms of organization which are conducive to economic feasibility and the commercial success of energy communities




Technologies for Integrated Energy Systems and Networks


Book Description

Technologies for Integrated Energy Systems and Networks Explore emerging technologies that will play a central role in humanity’s transition to a low-carbon future In Technologies for Integrated Energy Systems and Networks, a team of distinguished authors delivers a detailed discussion of integrated energy systems and networks, including a comprehensive overview of emerging technologies. The book focuses on the technologies and systems that play a major role in integrated energy systems, like renewable and distributed energy resources, power conversion technologies, hydrogen, storage technologies, electric mobility, zero- and positive-energy buildings, and local energy communities. A one-of-a-kind and holistic treatment of integrated energy systems, this book explores power conversion, including power-to-gas, power-to-liquid, and power- to-heat technologies, as well as other issues of interest to a broad range of students, professionals, and academicians involved in energy transition. It also covers: A thorough introduction to the digitalization of the energy sector and local market development enabling citizen involvement Comprehensive explorations of integrated energy systems as an engine of energy transition Practical discussions of renewable and distributed energy resources for sustainable economic development In-depth examinations of the role of hydrogen in a low-carbon energy future and the storage technologies of different energy carriers Perfect for electrical, construction, power and energy engineers, Technologies for Integrated Energy Systems and Networks will also earn a place in the libraries of electrochemists and environmental consultants.




Distributed Energy Resources in Microgrids


Book Description

Distributed Energy Resources in Microgrids: Integration, Challenges and Optimization unifies classically unconnected aspects of microgrids by considering them alongside economic analysis and stability testing. In addition, the book presents well-founded mathematical analyses on how to technically and economically optimize microgrids via distributed energy resource integration. Researchers and engineers in the power and energy sector will find this information useful for combined scientific and economical approaches to microgrid integration. Specific sections cover microgrid performance, including key technical elements, such as control design, stability analysis, power quality, reliability and resiliency in microgrid operation. - Addresses the challenges related to the integration of renewable energy resources - Includes examples of control algorithms adopted during integration - Presents detailed methods of optimization to enhance successful integration




Distributed Energy Resources in Local Integrated Energy Systems


Book Description

Distributed Energy Resources in Local Integrated Energy Systems: Optimal Operation and Planning reviews research and policy developments surrounding the optimal operation and planning of DER in the context of local integrated energy systems in the presence of multiple energy carriers, vectors and multi-objective requirements. This assessment is carried out by analyzing impacts and benefits at local levels, and in distribution networks and larger systems. These frameworks represent valid tools to provide support in the decision-making process for DER operation and planning. Uncertainties of RES generation and loads in optimal DER scheduling are addressed, along with energy trading and blockchain technologies. Interactions among various energy carriers in local energy systems are investigated in scalable and flexible optimization models for adaptation to a number of real contexts thanks to the wide variety of generation, conversion and storage technologies considered, the exploitation of demand side flexibility, emerging technologies, and through the general mathematical formulations established. - Integrates multi-energy DER, including electrical and thermal distributed generation, demand response, electric vehicles, storage and RES in the context of local integrated energy systems - Fosters the integration of DER in the electricity markets through the concepts of DER aggregation - Addresses the challenges of emerging paradigms as energy communities and energy blockchain applications in the current and future energy landscape - Proposes operation optimization models and methods through multi-objective approaches for fostering short- and long-run sustainability of local energy systems - Assesses and models the uncertainties of renewable resources and intermittent loads in the short-term decision-making process for smart decentralized energy systems




Renewable Energy Governance


Book Description

This book focuses on Renewable Energy (RE) governance - the institutions, plans, policies and stakeholders that are involved in RE implementation - and the complexities and challenges associated with this much discussed energy area. Whilst RE technologies have advanced and become cheaper, governance schemes rarely support those technologies in an efficient and cost-effective way. To illustrate the problem, global case-studies delicately demonstrate successes and failures of renewable energy governance. RE here is considered from a number of perspectives: as a regional geopolitical agent, as a tool to meet national RE targets and as a promoter of local development. The book considers daring insights on RE transitions, governmental policies as well as financial tools, such as Feed-in-Tariffs; along with their inefficiencies and costs. This comprehensive probing of RE concludes with a treatment of what we call the “Mega-What” question - who is benefitting the most from RE and how society can get the best deal? After reading this book, the reader will have been in contact with all aspects of RE governance and be closer to the pulse of RE mechanisms. The reader should also be able to contribute more critically to the dialogue about RE rather than just reinforce the well-worn adage that “RE is a good thing to happen”.




Trading in Local Energy Markets and Energy Communities


Book Description

This book presents trading in local energy markets and communities. It covers electrical, business, economics, telecommunication, information technology (IT), environment, building, industrial, and computer science and examines the intersections of these areas with these markets and communities. Additionally, it delivers an vision for local trading and communities in smart cities. Since it also lays out concepts, structures, and technologies in a variety of applications intertwined with future smart cities, readers running businesses of all types will find material of use in the book. Manufacturing firms, electric generation, transmission and distribution utilities, hardware and software computer companies, automation and control manufacturing firms, and other industries will be able to use this book to enhance their energy operations, improve their comfort and privacy, as well as to increase the benefit from the energy system. This book is also used as a textbook for graduate level courses.




Advances in Energy System Optimization


Book Description

The papers presented in this volume address diverse challenges in energy systems, ranging from operational to investment planning problems, from market economics to technical and environmental considerations, from distribution grids to transmission grids and from theoretical considerations to data provision concerns and applied case studies. The International Symposium on Energy System Optimization (ISESO) was held on November 9th and 10th 2015 at the Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies (HITS) and was organized by HITS, Heidelberg University and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.




Renewable Energy Communities and the Low Carbon Energy Transition in Europe


Book Description

This volume addresses renewable energy communities, and in particular renewable energy cooperatives (REScoops), in the context of the revised EU Renewables Directive. It provides a comprehensive account of the history and development of the renewable energy community movement in over six different countries of continental Europe. It addresses their visions, strategy, organisation, agency, and more particularly the challenges they encounter. This is of particular importance to gain more understanding into how renewable energy communities fare in domestic energy markets where they are confronted with regime institutions, structures and incumbents’ agency that tend to favour maintaining of the status quo while blocking attempts to empower and institutionalise renewable energy communities as market entrants having a disruptive, radical green and localist agenda. This volume will be an invaluable reference for academics and practitioners with an interest in social innovation in sustainable transitions, the role of community energy in energy markets, their agency, as well as an outlook to the impact that the EU Renewables Directive may have to change national legislation and policy frameworks to create a level playing field that is essentially more fair and beneficial to renewable energy communities.