Self-consumption for energy communities in Spain: a regional analysis under the new legal framework

TL;DR

This study analyzes the economic viability of shared self-consumption installations in Spanish energy communities under new legal rules, highlighting optimal sizing, technology cost impacts, and policy improvements.

Contribution

It provides a regional analysis of self-consumption under Spain's new legal framework, proposing policy enhancements based on economic and technical insights.

Findings

Optimal installation sizing yields economic savings across Spain.

Batteries require significant cost reductions to be cost-effective.

Solar compensation mechanisms influence battery attractiveness.

Abstract

European climate polices acknowledge the role that energy communities can play in the energy transition. Self-consumption installations shared among those living in the same building are a good example of such energy communities. In this work, we perform a regional analysis of optimal self-consumption installations under the new legal framework recently passed in Spain. Results show that the optimal sizing of the installation leads to economic savings for self-consumers in all the territory, for both options with and without remuneration for energy surplus. A sensitivity analysis on technology costs revealed that batteries still require noticeably cost reductions to be cost-effective in a behind the meter self-consumption environment. In addition, solar compensation mechanisms make batteries less attractive in a scenario of low PV costs, since feeding PV surplus into the grid, yet less efficient, becomes more cost-effective. An improvement for the current energy surplus remuneration policy was proposed and analysed. It consists in the inclusion of the economic value of the avoided power losses in the remuneration.