Building an electricity community: GreenPocket and Stadtwerk Haßfurt GmbH drive forward the expansion of renewable energies

The eCREW (establishing Community Renewable Energy Webs) research project is entering its final round this year. The project was launched by the Energy Institute Linz and is funded by the EU's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program. In addition to the initiator, ten partner companies consisting of energy suppliers, IT companies and universities are involved in the project. The Energy Communities approach offers energy suppliers a completely new service and is aimed at all end customers, whether they have a generation plant or not.
Households benefit,

• by receiving electricity at a lower market price
• by receiving renewable electricity without having to invest in their own renewable energy system
• by being able to sell the electricity they generate at a fair price

Utilities benefit,

• by setting themselves apart from the competition with special tariffs
• by reducing supply uncertainties while improving grid stability
• by facilitating customer acquisition and long-term customer loyalty

Implementation at Stadtwerk Haßfurt GmbH

Stadtwerk Haßfurt is one of the energy suppliers that have established the eCREW project with their end customers. As many customers in the supply network already have a PV system in operation, energy communities represent a major growth area. For the regional municipal utility and provider of 100% green electricity, the eCREW project is an innovative approach: an offer for all prosumers and consumers that benefits everyone equally and distributes the electricity supply more efficiently. The inclusion of all consumers was particularly important to the municipal utility, as the installation of PV systems is not permitted in some parts of Hassfurt's old town. Thanks to Energy Communities, the residents there can now also participate better in the regionally generated PV electricity.

The national legal regulations in Germany continue to pose a major challenge: In Austria, energy communities are already legally defined, can operate on the energy market and are also heavily subsidized and promoted by the state. German policy is more of a brake than a driver here - also due to the slow smart meter rollout - and makes it more difficult for regional municipal utilities in particular to gain a foothold in such models. The Horizon 2020 project was therefore a good opportunity for Haßfurt to build on the EC approach developed and, with the project results achieved through the diligent use of the field test participants, to be able to provide end customers with added value here too in the future.

Communities can track generation and consumption

The field test just mentioned is being carried out in Haßfurt in the form of ten energy communities with a total of 105 participants. The participants consist of consumer households, households with a PV system on full feed-in, self-consumption households and self-consumption households including a battery storage system. The ratio of consumers and households with a renewable energy system (“prosumers”) is approximately 50% each. The aim when allocating the participants to the respective ECs was to distribute the generation capacities in all CREWs similarly. Due to the high number of prosumers per CREW, a large proportion of renewable electricity generation usually resulted in an enormous energy surplus in the summer months. This shows how productive solar power can be, as even a small amount (approx. 25%) of prosumers is enough to cover the needs of a CREW.

During the field test, the 105 households use a visualization dashboard from GreenPocket. Here, participants can view their own consumption and generation, selected according to individual observation periods, as well as the energy flows of generation and consumption of the entire crew. As there is currently no legal framework for the use of energy communities, a financial incentive algorithm was developed specifically for the project. This includes the subsidization of renewable energy exchanged within the crew. This information is also provided together with an analysis of the PV investment potential. This also results in potential for a change in consumption behavior:

"With the help of the data, customers can see when increased consumption makes sense for the individual participant in terms of grid stability and financial incentive. In the future, further monetary incentive mechanisms can be implemented through dynamic tariffs, whereby less has to be paid in hours of high generation or surplus than when there is not enough energy for all households. This is very likely to lead to a change in consumption behavior and thus to energy savings,“ says Lukas Albert, Head of Energy Management and Project Manager for the ”eCREW" research project at the municipal utility in Haßfurt.

As already mentioned, the tariff structure has not yet been legally implemented, which is why all participants were offered the prospect of an annual bonus of around €30 - €50 via the incentive algorithm for electricity sharing, depending on their commitment and participation in the project. The monetary incentive was intended as a means of encouraging as many customers as possible to participate and thus raise awareness of the issue. In future, however, the trend will also be for the intrinsic desire to use more renewable electricity and save energy to encourage participation.

Stadtwerk Haßfurt's primary aim within the eCREW project was to test whether such an “electricity community product” would be accepted by end customers at all. The next step would be to evaluate which business and revenue models make sense for both the energy supplier and the end customer.

The future: possible business and revenue models

For legal reasons, the participants' annual energy bills are not currently affected by the project content. Therefore, the only monetary benefit at present is the CREW bonus for the joint exchange of renewably generated energy. In order to achieve concrete savings, a separate digital market with its own market price would have to develop. In this case, an energy supplier could offer the GreenPocket app for a fee or introduce a specific “Energy Community” tariff. ‍

In any case, Stadtwerk Haßfurt GmbH would like to strengthen the offer of dynamic tariffs. Generation and any surplus can also play a role in this.

In future, the municipal utility could also imagine using project synergies in the area of cross-selling. Currently, the GreenPocket app already shows how worthwhile an investment in a PV system would be in terms of self-consumption. Of course, a municipal utility can also build on this when selling renewable energy systems. In the future, electromobility could also be integrated into this process.

"We also see the potential to strengthen customer contact. Visualization is an important tool here. Although we already have very good contact with all customers as a small municipal utility, a project like this, together with the visualization app and the cross-selling potential, naturally gives us completely new opportunities to offer tailor-made products and get in touch via new channels. We are therefore very interested in continuing to firmly establish Energy Communities on the local energy market in Haßfurt," concludes Lukas Albert.

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