Community Energy Literature Review

The Charging Futures Forum in the UK has recently published a paper entitled “Electricity Network Access & Forward Looking Charges: Final Report and Conclusions”, available at http://www.chargingfutures.com/media/1203/access-and-flc-final-report-and-conclusions.pdf The report presents a series of options for how we might pay for using the electricity network in future, and describes potential changes to the status quo, some radical, and the gains and losses for different parties. Such changes have the potential to make or break business cases for local flexibility or balancing markets, new renewable generation and even the future of electric vehicles.   Electric vehicles owners might be expected to pay higher network costs for charging their cars at home, and users in constrained areas might compete for access to the network through auctions. The report covers the cost of new connections (Access)   and Forward-Looking Charges - the part of the network cost th...

The summary of the HoSEM project in the previous post might prompt questions from CE workers. Some are suggested below, with answers from the Grant Application Form (GAF), and further comments. (GAF:    http://gow.epsrc.ac.uk/NGBOViewGrant.aspx?GrantRef=EP/P031838/1 ) Who are the interested parties? Apart from the university researchers, the GAF names EDF Energy as a partner. Comment: this British energy company is owned by the French EDF (Électricité de France), which is itself state-owned and has world-wide interests. This raises the issue of how closely the HoSEM research is focussed on the UK. See   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/electricite_de_France How might a P2P system democratise the energy market? The GAF implies democratisation in part from the use of distributed ledger technology (said to provide all market participants with read and write access to the records for the production, sale, and purchase of energy).  Comment: would...

The Economic and Social Research Council held a seminar at UWE Bristol on 16 th May to discuss civil society, risk and climate change.  The main headings were: Challenges and constraints of communicating about climate change; Creative arts approaches to these challenges; How can arts, science and community work together to build resilience? Although wide ranging, the discussions were clearly relevant to community energy work. Some resources are noted below for those interested in the communications issues in CE. Research on the attitudes, values and actions of cultural leaders in response to climate change and environmental sustainability: https://www.juliesbicycle.com/ Handbook for science writers on climate change: https://climateoutreach.org/resources/ipcc-communications-handbook/ MOOC resources on transformational policies, such as U.Lab, see http://www.ottoscharmer.com/ Citizen-led air pollution reduction in cities: http://www.claircity...

Five papers related to smart grids in the UK, to supplement week 6 of the FutureLearn course “New Energy Technologies”: Bell, Keith and Eyre, Nick and Hawker, Graeme and Gissey, Giorgio Castagneto and Dodds, Paul and Darby, Sarah and Irvine, James and Paul, Greig and Watson, Jim (2017) A Smart, Flexible Energy System : The UK Energy Research Centre's (UKERC) Response to the Ofgem / BEIS Call for Evidence. Working paper. UKERC, London. , This version is available at https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/61062/ Blunsdon, E. 2015 Distributed generation: a load on the shoulders of DNOs Utility Week, 03/07/2015 https://utilityweek.co.uk/distributed-generation-a-load-on-the-shoulders-of-dnos/ Stanley, R., 2017 Comparison of price incentive models for locally matched electricity networks Western Power Distribution https://www.westernpower.co.uk/docs/Innovation/Other/Location-signals-report-18-12-17.aspx Laura Kane ;   Richard West ;   Rachael Taljaard ; ...

Bristol Energy Cooperative http://www.bristolenergy.coop/reports.html Centre for Sustainable Energy        https://www.cse.org.uk/ Community Energy England https://communityenergyengland.org/ Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC) is now part of the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-business-energy-and-industrial-strategy Energy Saving Trust http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/ European Commission https://ec.europa.eu/commission/priorities/energy-union-and-climate_en Institute for Sustainable Futures (Birmingham): https://www.bcu.ac.uk/business/institutes/isf International Energy Agency           https://www.iea.org/ Local Energy Scotland            https://www.localenergy.scot/ National Grid       https://www.nat...