# EEG+ digital energy communities

Status

ongoing

Starting point / motivation

Modern real estate projects in new construction as well as existing properties face the challenge of making the energy supply more sustainable and cost-effective. For developers, this means added value when selling the property. For existing properties, it means a reduction in operating costs for the respective users inside (whether owned or rented).

In the past, the concept of plus-energy districts was formed, which aims to design an energy system that produces more energy for the respective building complex than it needs itself. It thus becomes a decentralized power plant. On the other hand, in the recent past, one has come to the conclusion that buildings should above all be self-sufficient in terms of energy and should neither be dependent on electricity from the grid, for example, nor should they feed in large quantities of, for example, photovoltaic (PV) electricity as mini power plants.

The latter applies in particular because high feed-in quantities could lead to undesirable side effects such as negative electricity prices at lunchtime if solar energy were to be expanded across the board. Overall, the aim is therefore to only produce as much energy as can actually be consumed.

Exactly this was also introduced with the new market model of the energy community in 2022 and thus represents a certain discrepancy to the previously favored energy-plus district. Furthermore, it is currently not possible to include energy communities and energy-plus districts in the planning of new buildings or districts or simply to be taken into account in the renovation of existing buildings, since digital planning tools are completely missing here.

Contents and goals

This is where #EEG+ comes into play. The project looks at the intersections between energy-plus districts and energy communities and will show their synergies in new and existing buildings. Both market models should be considered separately and then compared with each other using three demo projects. The project also considers a possible supplement between energy-plus district and energy community and investigates whether an energy-plus community can make sense.

The core of the work is the development of a digital planning tool that can be used to easily calculate a plus-energy community at a very early stage of project development or a renovation concept based on all energy flows in a neighborhood (heat, cold, electricity, e-mobility, etc.).

The aim is to design this planning tool in such a way that it can provide concrete statements about future energy production or energy consumption with just a few data and information, and thus answer the question of possible savings in terms of costs and CO2 reduction.

Methods

3 demo projects, each of which is at a different stage of the implementation of sustainable energy solutions, are analyzed methodologically. Based on the data recording, the requirements for a digital planning tool are developed and used as the basis for programming the tool.

For example, a certain number of energy production systems (boilers, heat pumps, etc.) will be taken into account. A so-called plus energy community is then designed for each project, which in principle uses the maximum generation capacity, e.g. of the PV systems, as the basis for implementation as an energy community.

In the last step, this enables a comparison with the classic energy community, in which the generation of energy should only cover the respective self-consumption of the quarter.

Expected results

As a result, the project should develop an easy-to-use planning tool for plus-energy communities based on 3 demo projects, which corresponds to the respective requirements of the demo projects. This should then be made available on the market and used to calculate further projects with it.

Another result is the direct comparison between the energy community and the plus-energy community and their respective advantages and disadvantages based on the project demos, with the better solution serving as the basis for future demo implementation.

Project management

Dr. Stefano Coss, Arteria Technologies GmbH

Project or cooperation partners

• atmove GmbH
• AVORIS Projektentwicklung GmbH
• University of Applied Sciences Vienna
• quadratic GmbH
• Waldheimat Consulting and Project development GmbH

Dr. Stefano Coss
Schubertstrasse 6a
A-8010 Graz
Tel.: +43 (699) 105 093 86
E-mail: stefano.coss@arteria.at
Web: www.arteria-tech.com