{"id":799,"date":"2019-05-06T12:08:56","date_gmt":"2019-05-06T12:08:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/horizon.peachpuff-wolverine-566518.hostingersite.com\/?p=799"},"modified":"2019-05-06T12:08:56","modified_gmt":"2019-05-06T12:08:56","slug":"homemade-energy-gets-boost-to-go-mainstream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/799\/homemade-energy-gets-boost-to-go-mainstream\/","title":{"rendered":"Homemade energy gets boost to go mainstream"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Gareth Willmer<\/p>\n

New rules and initiatives to support communities wanting to produce their own renewable energy could help ordinary people play a key role in the European Union\u2019s transition to clean energy.<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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These moves, which include new EU legislation and the rollout of so-called living labs around Europe, look set to bolster people\u2019s growing push to get involved in producing clean energy.<\/p>\n

\u2018We see, now, these seeds of transformation, with a greater focus on citizens as active energy players \u2013 or prosumers \u2013 organised in collectives such as energy communities and cooperatives,\u2019 said Dr In\u00eas Campos, a sustainability researcher at the University of Lisbon in Portugal.<\/p>\n

Europe now has more than 3,600 renewable energy cooperatives, up from over 3,400 at the start of the year and 2,400 in early 2015, according to REScoop.eu<\/a>, the European federation for renewable energy cooperatives. Meanwhile, estimates suggest that\u00a0half of the EU’s households<\/a>\u00a0could produce clean energy by 2050.<\/p>\n

As\u00a0renewables have become more market-driven<\/a>\u00a0and regulation has lagged, however, community-based initiatives have\u00a0struggled<\/a> to compete because of the lack of consistent and clear frameworks to support them.<\/p>\n

But things could change following the introduction of new clean energy rules<\/a>\u00a0adopted by the European Parliament in March, which are set to take effect early next year. The rules aim to support people in their efforts to establish their own energy projects and consume, store and sell what they produce. No common EU rules for such \u2018prosumers\u2019 previously existed.<\/p>\n

Such community-led renewable energy initiatives could be aided by a project called PROSEU<\/a>, led by Dr Campos, which is working to help bring these initiatives into the mainstream.<\/p>\n

Central to the project are \u2018living labs\u2019 that are being initiated in nine countries across Europe. The labs bring together civil society, the business sector and government to examine and discuss potential opportunities and incentive structures for energy collectives, as well as how to overcome the factors that have held them back.<\/p>\n

\u2018What we aim for at the end of this living lab process is that a community has increased its adoption of renewables and has a plan to continue integrating them,\u2019 said Dr Campos.<\/p>\n

Wine<\/strong><\/p>\n

The main initiatives in the early days of the project, which launched a year ago, have taken place in Portugal. The wine sector in the southern Alentejo region was among the first involved in the labs.<\/p>\n

Dr Campos says viticulture is a good starting point to provide a \u2018holistic perspective\u2019 for helping inspire community-based initiatives, as an energy-intensive sector that is vulnerable to climate effects and keen on cutting emissions and costs.<\/p>\n

The sector, she says, is investing in some innovative green technologies, such as creating biomass from the olive stones that some wineries use for making olive oil to produce thermal energy and compost.<\/p>\n

\u2018We have found that technology is not the biggest barrier,\u2019 said Dr Campos. \u2018The main barriers we\u2019ve identified so far are regulatory or legal. Of course, there are also financial barriers, but, for instance, most of the wine producers would invest in a good renewables installation if it meant they would save money in the end.\u2019<\/p>\n

The project is also collaborating with the village of S\u00e3o Lu\u00eds, where the local administration is pushing to create Portugal\u2019s first renewable energy community<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To help make this community inclusive, says Dr Campos, ideas are being discussed such as potential crowdfunding schemes to help support investment by villagers in a co-owned solar installation.<\/p>\n

The collaborations have just started, but key obstacles to creating green communities are already emerging.<\/p>\n

Dr Campos says that Portuguese regulations make it possible for a local community to co-own a renewable energy installation, but not self-consume the energy that it creates \u2013 which would need to be injected into the grid.<\/p>\n

The uneven national legal regimes across Europe have also led to Portugal having just one renewable energy cooperative \u2013\u00a0Coop\u00e9rnico<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 compared with hundreds in Germany, she adds. Dr Campos believes, however, that the new EU legislation, which lays out rules to help consumers become more active players in the electricity market, could help accelerate the creation of green energy communities in countries where few exist.<\/p>\n

\u2018(If citizens are to) be at the centre of the energy transformation, then these collectives should be mainstreamed,\u2019 she added.<\/p>\n

Technologies<\/strong><\/p>\n

These changes and initiatives could also aid the future take-up of new technologies being developed for renewables that help put power in the hands of consumers. A project called\u00a0Willpower<\/a>, for example, is developing several pilot systems that capture and use the CO2 already in the air for heating and other uses in settings such as homes and businesses, as well as for fuel in the transport sector.<\/p>\n

Using energy from a renewable source such as solar or wind, Willpower\u2019s technology combines captured CO2 with water and enzymes in a reactor chamber. A sequence of chemical reactions is then carried out to make methanol.<\/p>\n

This methanol-based system can release energy when needed and store it between seasons \u2013 something that makes it more feasible for year-round residential use, rather than the shorter-term capabilities of batteries that store solar power, says Antonio Martinez, CEO of Germany-based energy company Gensoric, which runs Willpower.<\/p>\n

\u2018We can store the same energy in a 10 or 20-square-metre container that a battery could store on a football field, and perhaps for one-fifth of the cost,\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n

The system operates under low pressure and at body temperature, compared with other CO2 capture and conversion systems being explored that can require high pressures and temperatures of 500\u00b0C or more, says Martinez.<\/p>\n

While the project has tested a model roughly double the size of a domestic washing machine to see whether the system works and is safe, Martinez says it\u2019s still a few years away from becoming commercially available. The team needs to hone techniques such as customising enzymes to make the system more efficient and find improved ways of capturing atmospheric CO2.<\/p>\n

Martinez believes this technology could eventually lead to the creation of an affordable home version even smaller than a washing machine \u2013 and allow communities to create and share energy stores through linked systems.<\/p>\n

Connecting these systems in a community-based model would make it possible to store a huge amount of energy and help give consumers a sense of freedom they have not felt before from the traditional big energy companies, said Martinez.<\/p>\n

A push at an EU level will also aid communities keen on getting involved in green energy, he believes. \u2018I think we have a lot of people interested in playing a role in that,\u2019 said Martinez, \u2018but the regulations and incentives must be there.\u2019<\/p>\n

The research in this article was funded by the EU. If you liked this article, please consider sharing it on social media.
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Originally published on Horizon<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Gareth Willmer New rules and initiatives to support communities wanting to produce their own renewable energy could help ordinary people play a key role in the European Union\u2019s transition to clean energy. These moves, which include new EU legislation and the rollout of so-called living labs around Europe, look set to bolster people\u2019s growing … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":298,"featured_media":800,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[119,142,262,78],"class_list":["post-799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-earth-energy-environment","tag-industry","tag-renewable-energy","tag-solar","tag-sustainability"],"yoast_head":"\nHomemade energy gets boost to go mainstream - Horizon Magazine Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/799\/homemade-energy-gets-boost-to-go-mainstream\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Homemade energy gets boost to go mainstream\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Gareth Willmer New rules and initiatives to support communities wanting to produce their own renewable energy could help ordinary people play a key role in the European Union\u2019s transition to clean energy. 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