Author Description

This report assesses the influence on the operational and investment decisions of five representative Energy Community typologies (in Germany and Spain) of a variety of external factors, namely energy taxes, levies and tariff schemes. In particular, four schemes were tested: No Charges, Time-of-Use (TOU), Subscription Bandwidth and Peak power. The study indicates that none of the evaluated tariff structures poses significant barriers to Energy communities' future expansion. As long as investment and operational costs are competitive against electricity prices, communities will have incentives to form and invest in the energy assets that better fit their demand and geographical conditions. The TOU tariff, however, could lead to overinvestments in batteries under certain pricing conditions. The introduction of power-based charges, e.g. Bandwidth and Peak power, avoids this pitfall even in future scenarios with high price differentials. The Bandwidth tariff also offers an opportunity to adapt Use-of-Network charges to a future system with high prosumers participation as it ensures higher grid cost recovery. Another interesting alternative is the Portuguese regulation in which partial charges are always applied to self-consumption. Considering the impacts of self-generation while still recognizing its benefits is relevant as the study shows that self-consumption is the largest economic benefit in the short-term, but energy arbitrage and electricity sales will become relevant incomes for future Energy communities.