MOBI has an important role in two European funded research projects about ‘Local Energy Communities’ that started off this year. The first project is called RENAISSANCE or ‘Renewable integration and sustainability in energy communities’, an H2020 project with 4 pilot sites throughout Europe. The second project ROLECS or ‘The Roll out of Local Energy Communities’ is a unique cooperation between all Flemish research institutes active in the energy sectors and 25 companies, focusing on the Flemish context, trough 10 pilot sites within Flanders.
The main goal of these two projects is to deliver the pieces needed to advance the energy landscape in line with the view of the European Commission: first of all it needs to be more sustainable and secondly there has to be a more active participation of the end-consumer. The next couple of years we’ll notice the roll out of an energy transition changing the traditional energy market.
The broad range of involved partners have a joint interest in both projects, namely:
- To make ‘Local Energy Communities’ a relevant part of our energy system
- To enable more local renewables
- To provide new business opportunities without increasing societal cost of public infrastructure
To assess how stakeholders will be affected by these new developments and to gain insight in what their needs are, a MAMCA will be set up for an array of pilot sites. These MAMCA exercises are a central part of the two research projects because social acceptance is crucial for a successful roll out of an energy community, and you need to have a clear overview of what it takes to get people and businesses involved. It will be the first time that this analysis method is tested and implemented within the context of the energy sector. The first MAMCA results are expected near the end of 2019.