Energy Communities. Figure 8:
Energy Communities. The last exemption regime presented here is also the most recent one integrated into EU law. It was already described in D7.1 on pp. 12-14. Nevertheless, the following paragraphs will provide the definitions of energy communities before discussing how this regime may be relevant for developing microgrids.
Energy Communities. The Act amending the Electricity Supply Act, adopted on 29 December 2020, transposed the 2019 E- Directive and introduced new definitions. The most relevant here integrate into Danish law the concepts of aggregation (Aggregering), active customer (Aktiv xxxxx), citizen energy community (Borgerenergifællesskab), energy storage (Energilagring) and non-frequency ancillary services (Ikke frekvensrelateret systembærende ydelse)[264]. These definitions are completely or largely consistent with those in the directive and are detailed in section 3.1.5 of this deliverable. The December 2020 Executive Order on Citizen Energy Communities addresses the tasks and obligations of CECs, electricity trading companies and public electricity supply companies (DSOs and TSOs) in relation to the sharing, consumption or production of electricity within a CEC [ 265 ]. It therefore affects CECs and all actors CECs will have to deal with, especially to exchange energy between their participants. The order’s general provisions (art. 3 to 5) as well as those relating to the activities CECs can undertake (art. 6 to 9) are fairly similar to those of the 2019 E-Directive. There are, however, two distinctive elements. First, article 5 explicitly prohibits CECs from owning, establishing, purchasing or renting distribution networks. This will therefore pose an issue for the use of the legal qualification of CECs for developing microgrids in Denmark. Indeed, a microgrid CEC would then be obliged to rely on a DSO to organise the sharing of electricity within the community. This should be possible, as article 13 specifies that network companies must cooperate with CECs to facilitate such sharing, in return for compensation determined by the NRA (Forsyningstilsynet). In the case of a potential microgrid regime, the local DSO should be willing to organise electricity sharing behind the PCC, and must also accept that grid-islanding hardware and software are to be implemented in part of its grid. These additional conditions render the possibility of setting up microgrids more elusive. Secondly, article 8 (2) requires that a CEC be established as an electricity trading company or as an aggregator company and that it be subject to all relevant rules in order to participate directly in the electricity market. This has the merit of providing clarity on the possible qualification of a CEC. The CEC regime may be a proper basis for developing microgrids. However, the prohibition to operate its own grid ...
Energy Communities. Portugal has already implemented a legal regime for individual, domestic or non-domestic self- consumption before the European Commission’s Clean Energy Package release. Indeed, DL 153/2014 created Unidades de Pequena Produção (UPPs – small production units) and Unidades de Produção para Autoconsumo (UPACs – self-consumption units)[308], which have been deployed on Madeira, among other places [309]. In 2019, two Decree-Laws reshaped this legal framework, modifying the characteristics of UPPs [310] and setting a new legal regime for UPACs and Comunidades de Energia Renovável (CERs – renewable energy communities) [311]. The H2020 project COMPILE reviewed the legal framework applicable to the CERs [312]. Below we provide the relevant definition and regime for individual and collective self-consumption as well as CERs, before analysing them in light of the criteria identified for qualifying microgrids. The definition of self-consumption is linked to the notion of UPAC, which itself is defined as one or more production units for self-consumption primarily using RESs and associated with one or more loads, mainly to satisfy its own electricity needs. It can be owned and managed by a third party as long as it is subject to the self-consumer’s instructions [313]. In article 2 (e), the Decree-Law defines an individual self-consumer as a final consumer who produces renewable energy for their own consumption and who can store and sell their electricity. For non-domestic self-consumers, these activities must not constitute their principal commercial or professional activity. Articles 2 (f) and 5 (b) consider collective self-consumers as an organised group of two or more self-consumers living in the same building or in flats and houses at close proximity or a group of industrial, commercial or agricultural units and other infrastructures that are located in a defined area and which have UPACs. In a nutshell, self-consumers are the actors, acting alone or as a collective, via the use of UPACs. Self-consumers have the right to install a UPAC, to establish and operate direct lines when there is no connection to the public grid, or to establish and operate a rede interna in order to link the UPAC to a consumption point. They also have the right to consume the electricity they produce and store and deliver the surplus to a third party or the public grid, to trade this surplus through power purchase agreements (PPAs) or via supply activities, to install and operate storage sy...
