Optimal system design for energy communities in multi-family buildings: the case of the German Tenant Electricity Law

TL;DR

This paper develops a MILP model to optimize multi-energy systems in multi-family buildings under German law, revealing how legal frameworks influence technology choices, economic viability, and emissions mitigation in residential energy communities.

Contribution

It introduces a novel optimization model tailored to legal and technical complexities of energy communities in multi-family buildings, specifically applied to German Tenant Electricity Law.

Findings

High self-sufficiency (>90%) achievable with heat and power systems

Legal framework impacts technology interdependencies and economic viability

Subsidies do not promote battery storage utilization

Abstract

Involving residential actors in the energy transition is crucial for its success. Local energy generation, consumption and trading are identified as desirable forms of involvement, especially in energy communities. The potentials for energy communities in the residential building stock are high but are largely untapped in multi-family buildings. In many countries, rapidly evolving legal frameworks aim at overcoming related barriers, e.g. ownership structures, principal-agent problems and system complexity. But academic literature is scarce regarding the techno-economic and environmental implications of such complex frameworks. This paper develops a mixed-integer linear program (MILP) optimisation model for assessing the implementation of multi-energy systems in an energy community in multi-family buildings with a special distinction between investor and user. The model is applied to the German Tenant Electricity Law. Based on hourly demands from appliances, heating and electric vehicles, the optimal energy system layout and dispatch are determined. The results contain a rich set of performance indicators that demonstrate how the legal framework affects the technologies' interdependencies and economic viability of multi-energy system energy communities. Certain economic technology combinations may fail to support national emissions mitigation goals and lead to lock-ins in Europe's largest residential building stock. The subsidies do not lead to the utilisation of a battery storage. Despite this, self-sufficiency ratios of more than 90% are observable for systems with combined heat and power plants and heat pumps. Public CO2 mitigation costs range between 147.5-272.8 EUR/tCO2. Finally, the results show the strong influence of the heat demand on the system layout.