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establishing Community Renewable Energy Webs - Rolling out a business model and operational tool creating webs of households that jointly manage energy to improve efficiency and renewables uptake

Project description

Power to the people

The decentralisation of energy generation can provide multiple benefits. From passive consumers to active participants in the local energy system, this transition allows individuals and businesses to play a role in the energy system. The EU-funded eCREW project will coordinate the implementation of an innovative scheme of household cooperation in energy management. Specifically, it will develop community renewable energy webs allowing households to optimise energy efficiency and reduce expenditures. It will test the community webs on households, establishing some 200 webs with 15 000 participants. The system will be set up in such a way as to ensure that monetary benefits from the community renewable energy webs are distributed among the prosumers, traditional consumers and administrative entities.

Objective

eCREW coordinates and supports the roll-out of an innovative scheme of household cooperation in energy management. These are Community Renewable Energy Webs (CREWs), in which households jointly exploit household-level electricity generation and battery storage capacities and optimise energy efficiency and expenditures. The key purpose of CREWs is to support the transition of passive consumers to active participants in the local energy system through informed decisions and collective actions.
In eCREW, three energy companies from DE, TR and ES (Lighthouse Communities) will roll-out the eCREW approach to their clients. A strong and divers Follower Community made up of entities from AT, DE, ES, FR, GR, SE and TR is made fit for giving the eCREW approach a “Go”, too. Together, 240,000 households will be enabled to join a CREW during the project runtime, establishing about 200 CREWs with 15,000 participants, saving at least 13 GWh/year.
Cooperation within a CREW is facilitated through the provision of an award-winning smart phone app (PEAKapp), exploiting smart meter data to stimulate an increase in energy efficiency and the uptake of local renewable electricity generation.
Administration of the CREWs, including the billing of consumption and generation, is covered by electricity retailing companies which are thereby transformed into holistic service providers; we call them Community Administering Entities (CAEs). In our approach, administrative burdens are relieved from the households, who are then free to focus their efforts on making the most out of their participation in a CREW.
Monetary benefits from the eCREW approach are distributed amongst prosumers, traditional consumers, and the CAE through an innovative split-incentives contract applied in the project. The financial arrangement is tailored to ensure that the eCREW approach is financially viable and attractive for all participants and allows a non-discriminatory participation of all households.

Call for proposal

H2020-LC-SC3-2018-2019-2020

See other projects for this call

Sub call

H2020-LC-SC3-EE-2019

Coordinator

ENERGIEINSTITUT AN DER JOHANNES KEPLER UNIVERSITAT LINZ VEREIN
Net EU contribution
€ 402 500,00
Address
ALTENBERGER STRASSE 69
4040 Linz
Austria

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Region
Westösterreich Oberösterreich Linz-Wels
Activity type
Research Organisations
Links
Total cost
€ 402 500,00

Participants (9)