establishing Community Renewable Energy Webs - Rolling out a business model and operational tool creating webs of households that jointly manage energy to improve efficiency and renewables uptake

ended

eCREW coordinates and supports the roll-out of an innovative scheme of household cooperation in energy management. These are Community Renewable Energy Webs (CREWs), in which households jointly exploit household-level electricity generation and battery storage capacities and optimise energy efficiency and expenditures. The key purpose of CREWs is to support the transition of passive consumers to active participants in the local energy system through informed decisions and collective actions. In eCREW, three energy companies from DE, TR and ES (Lighthouse Communities) will roll-out the eCREW approach to their clients. A strong and divers Follower Community made up of entities from AT, DE, ES, FR, GR, SE and TR is made fit for giving the eCREW approach a “Go”, too. Together, 240,000 households will be enabled to join a CREW during the project runtime, establishing about 200 CREWs with 15,000 participants, saving at least 13 GWh/year. Cooperation within a CREW is facilitated through the provision of an award-winning smart phone app (PEAKapp), exploiting smart meter data to stimulate an increase in energy efficiency and the uptake of local renewable electricity generation. Administration of the CREWs, including the billing of consumption and generation, is covered by electricity retailing companies which are thereby transformed into holistic service providers; we call them Community Administering Entities (CAEs). In our approach, administrative burdens are relieved from the households, who are then free to focus their efforts on making the most out of their participation in a CREW. Monetary benefits from the eCREW approach are distributed amongst prosumers, traditional consumers, and the CAE through an innovative split-incentives contract applied in the project. The financial arrangement is tailored to ensure that the eCREW approach is financially viable and attractive for all participants and allows a non-discriminatory participation of all households.