The energy community: the sharing economy as a driver in the energy transition

“If the sharing economy can work in other industries – why not in the energy market?” Marko Svetina, CEO at CyberGrid.

In a mindful residential community, borrowing a cup of sugar from your neighbour means much more than just money-saving for a single person. Moreso, the sharing of resources comes with invaluable non-material and long-term benefits for the good of the entire community: It creates an opportunity to connect with people, and it fosters a culture of participation. In an energy community, “energy sharing” means “energy caring”, building a rewarding and sustainable energy future. An energy community can monetize its assets on energy markets for extra income.

PV panels on residential buildings — Photo: Pixabay

Technological tools in support of the sharing business model

Shared ownership of flexibility-providing assets, such as decentralised battery storage and renewable generation is a cornerstone in project Crossbow, with CyberGrid playing an indicative technological role. The company’s award-winning proprietary software solution collects distributed energy resources and bundles them into one, thus helping energy asset owners to make their energy offer more attractive for the markets. With the help of the tools developed in H2020 project Crossbow, such as the CFP (Cooperative Flexibility Platform), energy asset owners can now make use of a new business model empowering them to organize themselves as cooperatives. This represents an interesting way for a local residential community to create a new revenue stream, as they can now monetize their energy assets from PV panels or from wind on different energy markets.The end-customer is the key protagonist in the energy transition – and modern technology is the enabler. To facilitate higher penetration of clean energies, new business models must reflect and remunerate the value of individual participation in the energy transition, especially for communities. The Crossbow consortium is working on enabling these technological and monetary aspects of making the sharing economy a success.The technology for sharing energy is ready, and numerous countries are willing to support the energy transition and the European Green Deal with a focus on the end-customer. Let's take that step towards a cleaner and more sustainable electrical supply.