Denmark has an ambitious and they have stated a target of 70% of CO2 emissions reduction compared to 1990 levels by 2030. As a part of the raise of awareness about climate change, terms such as energy community and local energy systems have been getting more and more attention recently. The latter terms do not have a single definition but they all lean towards using more energy when it is locally available and less when it needs to be transported from distant locations.

Usually, energy communities include prosumers (consumers of energy that produce energy at certain times) that can have or have not the possibility to store energy, e.g. via batteries or thermal energy storage. Although these concepts can sound attractive to different stakeholders, it is not yet clear what the impact of ‘energy communities’ on different distribution systems is.

In this demo project, CITIES partners want to make a simple analysis of the impact of energy communities on three different grid layouts. The three grid layouts will represent urban, suburban and rural areas of Denmark. The objective is to estimate the consequences of different setups of energy communities on distribution grids, as well as to find the energy community set-ups that require further research.