Energy: Energy communities, from ENEA innovative solutions and models

Promoting innovative and replicable models of energy community management through hi-tech tools, new collaborations with local authorities and institutions across the country and the creation of a discussion table on the topic. This is the objective of the ENEA plan for the governance of energy communities, based on a coordinated set of technological, economic and social actions to improve environmental sustainability, citizens’ quality of life and social cohesion.

The plan will be presented on May 19 during the webinar Sviluppo e futuro delle Comunità Energetiche in Italia, organized by the ENEA Department of Energy Technologies and Renewable Sources to deepen the opportunities in this sector through a permanent discussion table among the world of research, institutions, municipalities, companies and trade associations, also following the legislation on energy communities introduced last September.

"The Smart Energy Division of the ENEA Department of Energy Technologies and Renewable Sources has acquired skills that enable us to provide the communities concerned with a set of urban data and service sharing platforms for monitoring high energy consumption public infrastructures ”, Stefano Pizzuti, head of the ENEA Smart Cities and Communities Laboratory pointed out. "We are also leader in the Internet of Things, Big Data and Blockchain to improve energy efficiency, competitiveness, social acceptability, market penetration and better meet the needs of communities, citizens, public administrations and companies ”, he said.

With the aim of supporting and encouraging the development of new Renewable Energy Communities (CER), ENEA has developed RECON [1], an innovative, easy-to-use tool available online (https://recon.smartenergycommunity.enea.it/), which allows to carry out preliminary energy, economic and financial analyses in the residential sector. Based on simple information such as electricity consumption, plant characteristics and some parameters related to the investment, RECON can estimate energy yield, environmental impact, self-consumption and energy sharing in CERs and calculate cash flows and main economic and financial indicators (net present value, internal rate of return, payback time, etc.), taking into account different types of investment financing and the incentives envisaged by the current regulatory framework.

This versatile tool can analyze clusters of homes according to different information levels; moreover, if consumption data are not available, the simulator estimates them on the basis of ad hoc algorithms. Carried out as part of the Research of the Electrical System [2], RECON can already count among its users ACER Reggio Emilia and the Municipality of Magliano Alpi (CN) - one of the first CERs in Italy – to whom ENEA provides training and assistance on the evaluation of outcomes and the regulatory framework in force.

"We want to foster a paradigm shift towards a bottom-up social and energy system in which citizens, institutions and companies take active roles in shaping community and self-consumption groups based on decentralization, collaboration, participation,

which brings several advantages, allowing to better monitor and manage energy use, increase flexibility of the network, lower bills and greenhouse gas emissions and opening up new opportunities to fuel the energy transition of our country, as envisaged by the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, which has allocated 2.2 billion euro to promote energy communities and self-consumption" pointed out  Piero De Sabbata, Head of the Cross Technologies for Urban and Industrial Districts Laboratory.

In addition to RECON, the ENEA platform, called Local Energy Community, comprises additional technologies including a "dashboard" to manage a renewable energy community and the Portal Dhomus to collect, aggregate and analyse data from residential users and provide them with educational feedback. A  platform for Local Token Economy services is underway, with Blockchain technology tools for the exchange of goods and services with mutualistic, cooperative and sustainable purposes.

For more information on RECON please contact:

Matteo Caldera, ENEA –Smart Cities and Communities Laboratory, matteo.caldera@enea.it

Link to the WEB SITE/SITE: https://recon.smartenergycommunity.enea.it/

For more information on the energy community model and agreements with institutions and local governments please contact:

Mauro Annunziato, ENEA – Head Smart Energy Division, mauro.annunziato@enea.it

For more information on the worskhop “Sviluppo e futuro delle Comunità Energetiche in Italia”: https://www.enea.it/it/seguici/events/comunitaenergetiche_19mag2021/sviluppo-e-futuro-delle-comunita-energetiche-in-italia

Free-to-watch video  on the CER in Magliano Alpi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stWQdx_jB5Q

CER Website of Magliano Alpi: https://cermaglianoalpi.it/

[1] Renewable Energy Community ecONomic simulator

[2] PTR 2019-21 nel contesto del Progetto 1.7 “Tecnologie per la penetrazione efficiente del vettore elettrico negli usi finali”