Concept and Modeling of Participation Opportunity for Large-Scale Renewable Energy Plants

Abstract

Citizen participation in the energy transition is desirable for many reasons: it increases acceptance of renewable energies, fulfils the wish to make one's own contribution to the energy transition and generates relevant parts of the necessary capital for the transformation of the energy system. This paper presents a scalable participation concept for the German legal framework which allows citizens to invest in and partially consume electricity from large-scale renewable energy plants at the time of generation. The developed concept provides a method for direct financial involvement via a direct contract with local electricity suppliers and virtual self-consumption by matching demand with PV generation – without the need for property ownership or new subsidies. Different consumer types and participants shares of a large-scale PV plant are modelled and simulated for the years 2019-2021. The financial advantage of citizen participation depends on the type of energy generation plant, yearly (solar) yield, on the remuneration for the surplus energy quantity, on the electricity procurement costs, on the customer's energy consumption, on the amount, and time flexibility and others. This paper shows that all analysed consumer types have the potential to profit from the model every year, although simulations are dependent on variable annual factors and assume the energy supplier's short-term procurement. The approach’s scalability and organizational simplicity could expedite the development of local participatory projects and contribute significantly to Germany's energy transition.