Apartment blocks in Wroclaw, Poland

Wroclaw is the largest city in south west Poland, with 650,000 inhabitants. Although there is a large thermal district heating plant (cogeneration) in the city, it is not available for all inhabitants. Coal-fired boilers are still commonly used, often supplied with all kinds of waste and releasing substantial amounts of CO2 emissions. In Poland, electricity is mostly produced in coal-fueled power plants, which makes projects like Lightness an important part of the energy transition.

Less than half of Poland’s population lives in large blocks of flats. As a result, there is very little common roof area per capita, an important factor in determining the potential for installation of solar photovoltaic cells. There are two types of housing associations: Spółdzielnia mieszkaniowa (housing cooperative) and Wspólnota mieszkaniowa (housing community), which can manage building communities. This case study will focus on the first type. The Spółdzielnia mieszkaniowa’s legal framework allows for decisions to be made by a few members regarding facility management, infrastructure, and maintenance in the respective facilities.

Two locations and 2 apartment blocks have been selected in one of the biggest communities, Spółdzielnia-Południe. Those two apartment blocks give the potential of 2 energy communities, potentially within 142 households and 66 households.

In those two locations a different scenario can be verified. At one of the locations PV panels are installed on the roof, but produced energy is used only to cover the energy needs in the common area. In the LIGHTNESS project we will verify the possibility of providing residence opportunities to consume locally produced energy.