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Emerging Community Energy Ecosystems: Analysis of Organizational and Governance Structures of Selected Representative Cases

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Technological Innovation for Industry and Service Systems (DoCEIS 2019)

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Abstract

The quest to decarbonize and decentralize the current power grid has enabled high penetration of Distributed Energy Resources at the edge of the distribution network. The diversity, complexity and growing numbers of these energy resources currently pose a challenge to managing them. This has resulted in the emergence of various energy ecosystems which use diverse community-based organizational strategies and initiatives as forms of management techniques. There are also corresponding business models and governance structures that are innovative and technologically disruptive to the operations of the current grid. An analysis of five representative cases of these Renewable Energy Communities is performed using real-life projects as case studies. The focus areas considered in this study included organizational and governance structures, roles, and the relationship between key stakeholders/owners, how these ecosystems interact with the power grid, and the role of collaborations. The outcome of the study revealed that each category of ecosystem has similar organizational and governance structures although they may differently be constituted. In terms of ownership, energy cooperative, municipalities, and communities were found to own a greater share of these energy resources. Furthermore, most of these ecosystems were found to interact with the grid by supplying excess energy from the community to the power grid whilst others operate in isolation from the grid. Apart from one case, all the others showed elements of collaborations as an integral component of their mode of operations.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the contributions of the Portuguese FCT-Strategic program UID/EEA/00066/2013 for providing partial financial support for this work. Furthermore, we extend our appreciations to Ghana Educational Trust Fund (GETFund), the University of Energy and Natural Resources and UNINOVA CTS for supporting this work with their research facilities and resources.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Sciences and Technology and UNINOVA - CTS, Nova University of Lisbon, Campus de Caparica, 2829-516, Monte Caparica, Portugal

    Kankam O. Adu-Kankam & Luis M. Camarinha-Matos

  2. School of Engineering, University of Energy and Natural Resources (UENR), P. O. Box 214, Sunyani, Ghana

    Kankam O. Adu-Kankam

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  1. Kankam O. Adu-Kankam
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  2. Luis M. Camarinha-Matos
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Correspondence to Kankam O. Adu-Kankam .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. NOVA University of Lisbon, Monte Caparica, Portugal

    Luis M. Camarinha-Matos

  2. NOVA University of Lisbon, Monte Caparica, Portugal

    Ricardo Almeida

  3. NOVA University of Lisbon, Monte Caparica, Portugal

    José Oliveira

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Adu-Kankam, K.O., Camarinha-Matos, L.M. (2019). Emerging Community Energy Ecosystems: Analysis of Organizational and Governance Structures of Selected Representative Cases. In: Camarinha-Matos, L., Almeida, R., Oliveira, J. (eds) Technological Innovation for Industry and Service Systems. DoCEIS 2019. IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, vol 553. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17771-3_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17771-3_3

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