Bringing People Together to Take Action
Northern Powergrid’s Electricity Innovation Trial App Community Energy Sharing
What is Community Energy Sharing?
Participants, who have solar panels can share their excess electricity, which is generated when the sun shines with participants who do not have solar panels. As energy regulations do not allow energy trading within a community, the Northern Powergrid trial will simulate electricity trading.
The Whitley Bay Big Local community centre has 60 solar panels on the roof with a generation capacity of 23.1 kWp. Some of the electricity generated is used in the community centre, the excess electricity generated could be shared.
The aim is to simulate how the excess generated by the community centre and other participants with solar panels could be shared with other participants.
By clicking on the icon in the centre at the bottom of the app start screen, the community screen will be opened.
How does community energy sharing work?
If participants, who consume electricity (consumers) use electricity, when the sun is shining the excess electricity exported by participants with solar panels (prosumers) could be shared.
The potential financial advantages of prosumers sharing excess electricity with consumers can be simulated.
The top graph on the right shows:
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in blue: what the community centre imports from their supplier
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in yellow: the energy used from the solar panels on the roof
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in green: the excess electricity that could be shared with consumers.
The graph below shows a participant without solar panels:
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in blue : what a consumer imports from their supplier
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in green: the electricity that could be used from the excess generated from the community centre.
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What are the costs and benefits displayed?
The financial advantages of sharing electricity are calculated and displayed under Costs and Benefits. REC is Renewable Energy Community, which is the name of the community energy sharing model in Portugal, on which the app concept is modelled.
The financial amounts displayed have not yet been verified and should only be taken as guilde.
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What is Consumption Distribution?
The Consumption Distribution graph shows:
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the electricity imported from the grid (blue)
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self consumption (yellow) if electricity is being generated from solar panels.
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electricity that could be shared with the community (green)
