Modelling of integrated community energy systems
Kostas Chasapis, Loughborough
Summary
The concept of collective actions to reduce, purchase, manage and generate energy is becoming more and more popular. Such systems particularly emphasize on local engagement, leadership and control with the local community benefiting collectively from the systems.
Community energy systems are gradually gaining a momentum in the UK with more than 5000 community groups undertaking energy initiatives in the last five years. The UK’s first Community Energy Strategy has been published in 2015 in which four main types of energy activity that communities can get involved in are identified:
- Generating energy (electricity or heat).
- Reducing energy use (saving energy through energy efficiency and behavior change).
- Managing energy (balancing supply and demand).
- Purchasing energy (collective purchasing or switching to save money on energy).
The benefits of the integrated community energy systems (ICES)can be summarized to: maintaining energy security and tackling climate change, helping communities save money on energy bills and wider social and economic benefits. Nevertheless the challenges of designing and operating these systems are not fully mapped or studied yet. There is much effort focused in researching the potentials of the community energy systems and the problems that such endeavors may encounter.
The current PhD which is titled ‘Modelling of integrated community energy systems’ will attempt to provide additional knowledge on the ICES by modelling and simulating the operation of such a system. The aim is to create a reliable and functional model that can emulate the performance of an ICES and study its operation and the technical and/or scientific problems that occur from the implementation of the ICES to the local and national networks. The outcomes of the study will help to enrich the understanding of these systems that has been built up so far by the research community.
Project Team
Student
Kostas Chasapis
Supervisor(s)
Prof. Kevin Lomas
Dr. David Allinson