New article on Energy Policy shows how community solar policy can increase PV adoption in cities
Cities account for over two-thirds of global primary energy consumption and a similar share of CO2 emissions. A new paper by SusTec Senior Research, Alejandro Nuñez-Jimenez, with Prakhar Mehta (Friedrich-Alexander-Universität) and Danielle Griego (ETH Zurich) shows how community solar policy can accelerate PV adoption in cities to address climate change and reduce local air pollution.
"Until now, PV has barely taken off in cities. There are technical and economic barriers caused by the built urban environment that make installing PV more challenging than in other contexts." Explains the study's lead author, Alejandro Nuñez-Jimenez. "This is a huge missed opportunity for addressing climate change and reducing local air pollution. Most of the world's population lives in cities, and new ways to deploy solar energy could expand access to renewable energy to millions of people."
One of the new ways of deploying solar energy is called community solar. The article defines it as "medium- and large-scale PV systems co-owned by multiple participants who collectively recover their investment by using the solar electricity for their own needs and selling the excess generation to the local electricity distribution company." This type of energy system has received increased attention from governments in recent years, but how to regulate it best is an ongoing debate. As the paper's coauthor, Danielle Griego, explains, "there are only a handful of policies for community solar implemented around the world, and they are still refining various measures, including regulations of boundary conditions." In particular, she points to the recent amendment of the law governing community energy installations in Spain. "In October of last year [2022], the Spanish government increased the maximum distance between buildings sharing a self-consumption installation from 500 to 1,000 meters. The measure was met with resistance because it was perceived as being too limited; however, in just a few weeks, the limit was extended to 2,000 meters."
"In Switzerland, a very restrictive policy was suggested for community solar in cities. We wanted to test what would happen with more permissive rules," says Prakhar Mehta, coauthor of the paper. "Using data for nearly 5,000 buildings in a city district in Zurich, we combined two computer models to evaluate the effect of different policy formulations. The results show that allowing buildings farther apart from each other to be part of community PV installations not only increases PV adoption but also reduces the need for policies like investment subsidies."
The paper is now available in Energy Policy with open access. Find it here: Download https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2023.113477