Finanziamento UE – NextGenerationEU PRIN 2022 "Compensation Rules Among Members of Heterogeneous Energy Communities" PNRR M4C2 investimento 1.1 Avviso 104/2022

The research project aims to address a central problem of Energy Communities (ECs) (see later for a proper definition), namely that of establishing fair compensation rules among the participating members. The problem should distinguish two types of ECs: the collective self-consumption groups (CSGs) and the renewable energy communities (RECs). The first type is typically represented by flat owners living in the same building. Here the problem originates from the natural expectation of the members to share the energy generated by the common plant proportionally to their investment, which is an outcome practically impossible to obtain. The members of a CSG in general differentiate with respect to family size, job, life-style and so they would usually consume different amounts of energy. Fair compensation rules are, therefore, required allowing low-consumption owners to be repaid by high-consumption ones. In their absence, low-consumption owners would obviously complain, threatening the survival of an EC, or even preventing its birth. The second type, RECs, are ECs including heterogeneous members (such as municipalities, farmers, small companies) possibly already owning a renewable plant, whose general objective is self-generation and self-consumption. Besides, other objectives of RECs can be to contrast energy poverty. Also members of RECs need to find compensation schemes to trade energy among them and to leave the unused energy to the grid. Depending from case to case, compensation rules can range from quite complicated pricing mechanisms for different hours of the day to a simple fixed compensation price. Finding such compensation rules is, however, not an obvious task. Pure economic rationality can combine with environmental and social responsibility as possible motivations to enter an EC. Moreover, the introduction of national regulations to incentivize the growth of ECs add and possibly complicate the search for fair compensation rules. Assuming that the members of an EC are (expected) cost minimizers and are possibly risk averse, it is possible to model a theoretical optimization problem depending on the compensation price along with other decisions, such as the capacity of the generation plant and/or of the storage, and the willingness to modify the consumption profile. The analysis of such problems can provide a deep understanding of how such compensation rules depend on other decision variables and regulatory parameters. Given the low number of experiences available to develop an empirical analysis, the project aims to check the theoretical results by means of empirical laboratory experiments and surveys. Taking advantage of the lab experiments and surveys, it will be possible to analyze under which conditions and pricing schemes free riding opportunities are more likely to emerge. We will also determine which compensation rules encourage agents to join or either exit from an EC.