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2021 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

Implementation and Operation of Blockchain-Based Energy Communities Under the New Legal Framework

Authors : Stephan Cejka, Franz Zeilinger, Mark Stefan, Paul Zehetbauer, Argjenta Veseli, Katrin Burgstaller, Marie-Theres Holzleitner

Published in: Smart Cities, Green Technologies, and Intelligent Transport Systems

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

The current movement within the energy market caused by the need for climate measures along with emerging new technologies leads to an evolution to a more intelligent, decentralized power network. Energy communities are part of this progress by jointly producing, consuming, storing, and sharing energy to increase the self-consumption of locally generated energy. These energy communities are the focus of this article. Besides the legal framework, in particular, the European Union’s Clean Energy Package, the implementation of energy communities will depend heavily on suitable information and communications technology (ICT) solutions, e.g., the Blockchain technology which again rises legal implications like privacy issues.

This article provides an interdisciplinary overview about the legal, economic, and technical questions arising due to the deployment of energy communities in their integration into the existing power system. A concrete implementation of a Renewable Energy Community by utilizing Blockchain technology and the implications regarding privacy issues, energy efficiency as well as profitability aspects are discussed and results of a comprehensive stimulative study on energy savings for community customers are presented.

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next chapter Correlation of Weights in an Evaluation Model for Smart City Proficiency with Less Than 50,000 Inhabitants: A Greek City Case Study

Unclear usage of language (at least) in the german and english versions of the directive have often, including by authorities, led to an understanding of a restriction to certain types of members.

Ambiguous usage of language (at least) in the German and English versions of the directive allows the dissent opinion of Lowitsch et al. [43] that just restricts the controlling members to a certain proximity.

I.e. ‘any operation or set of operations which is performed on personal data or on sets of personal data, whether or not by automated means, such as collection, recording, organization, structuring, storage, adaptation or alteration, retrieval, consultation, use, disclosure by transmission, dissemination or otherwise making available, alignment or combination, restriction, erasure or destruction’.

They are the right to information, access to personal data, rectification, erasure, restriction of processing, data portability, objection and not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing, including profiling.

I.e., personal data shall only be kept as long as necessary.

I.e., only the minimum required personal data shall be collected.

The Oxford Dictionary defines ‘erasure’ as ‘the act of removing writing, drawing, recorded material or data’.

The Oxford Dictionary defines ‘destruction’ as ‘the act of destroying something; the process of being destroyed’.

Note that especially the CEC can offer a high variety of use cases (cf. Subsect. 3.1).

The Blockchain Grid project also investigated different kinds of relationships between the participants, such as members of one family within a community that want to trade energy between them without revenue.

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Title: Implementation and Operation of Blockchain-Based Energy Communities Under the New Legal Framework
Authors: Stephan Cejka
Franz Zeilinger
Mark Stefan
Paul Zehetbauer
Argjenta Veseli
Katrin Burgstaller
Marie-Theres Holzleitner
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Book: Smart Cities, Green Technologies, and Intelligent Transport Systems
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-89169-5

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-030-89170-1

Copyright Year: 2021
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89170-1_1

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