Neighborhood solutions with energy sharing

The Borderstep Institute is working with IKEM on a study for the German Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW) to examine the framework conditions for the efficient implementation of neighborhood solutions for energy sharing.

The background to this is that self-supply with energy from rooftop PV systems in buildings and neighborhoods in combination with home storage systems and the feed-in of surplus electricity into the public grid is increasing significantly.

Generating and using energy collectively
Neighborhood solutions in energy management offer opportunities to generate and use energy more efficiently, sustainably and collectively directly in the neighborhood. For example, technologies such as power-to-heat or power-to-vehicle are used to reuse surplus electrical energy in a meaningful way.

At the same time, district solutions can also help to provide flexibility for supplying the surrounding area and the distribution grid. Such flexibilities make an important contribution to the energy transition, as they help to better balance supply and demand in the increasingly fluctuating electricity system.

Concepts and business models for energy management
In order to make better use of this potential, we need standardized and more efficient processes as well as suitable organizational and contractual concepts for energy management – for example for optimization, sector coupling and flexibilization. It must also be possible to implement these concepts as business models between the stakeholders in the neighborhood, for example for energy sharing, peer-to-peer trading or energy pooling.

The aim of the study is to analyze how ‘energy sharing’, which is provided for in the EU legal framework but has not yet been enshrined in national law in Germany, can be implemented using appropriate concepts and business models. The aim is to achieve economies of scale and higher utilization of the energy infrastructure within districts.

Recommendations for promoting energy sharing
To this end, the Borderstep Institute and IKEM analyze best practice approaches and formulate recommendations for promoting energy sharing and its implementation in German law.