Residential communities in The Netherlands
Case study leader
i.LECO and BAM (Dutch construction company)
The Dutch case study will combine two pilot sites in two different locations: Woerden and Badhoevedorp. The pilot in Woerden is located in the area “Schilderkwartier”, which consists of social housing, and is in fact an energy community between ZOM-houses (Zero-On-Meter), that went through a net-zero retrofitting by BAM, and non-ZOM-houses (not Zero-On-Meter). The second pilot is the new urban development “Quatrebras”, located in Badhoevedorp. For the pilot, one of the three parts of Quatrebras will be used, i.e. “Quatrebras Park”, which consists of single-family houses.
The use of multiple pilot sites has the potential to provide greater economies of scale, offer a variety in the learnings that will be achieved and allow for the development of multi-community forming strategies.
i.LECO will be a technical aggregator and Local Energy Community (LEC) provider, and as a cross-pilot overall provider will sub-contract tasks to the pilot site locations.
Local Energy Community Buildings
Residential, small commercial: office, shop, small industry, research, services (hotel, restaurant, etc.)
involved in the project pilot sites
stakeholders
- I.LECO as case study leader
- BAM (Dutch construction company) as representative for both pilots
- Two Citizen Energy Community managers (one per pilot site)
Immediate potential outreach after the project
3,000 houses/year
Up to 60,000 houses in 20 years
Type of business
Business-to-Consumer
Services that will be tested
Smart contracts, peer-to-peer community trading, Citizen Energy Communities optimisation, and congestion management.
Challenge
For provision of true community energy services, the regulations still have to be changed. This will help advance the value of community service in relation to lower costs of energy distribution. Furthermore, the current system of incentives in the Netherlands is based on a “net-metering” system, which substantially lets the prosumer use the electrical grid as a “free” battery. This system, very convenient for small PV prosumers, represents however an obstacle for energy communities, since it makes the advantage of an energy community (that of being able to maximise the self-consumption) useless.
Engagement of people that want to participate in the energy communities is crucial. Energy communities can offer many benefits and the general idea can be explained in a way that is comprehensible to the general public. However, the real functioning and details regarding different energy community services is often rather complex. Communication and, especially in the early stages, interaction with the citizens in the CECs will be of key importance.
