COMPILE: Integrating Community Power in Energy Islands

Year

2021

Organisation

Laboratory of Energy Policy at the University of Ljubljana

Description

The EU-funded project shows how energy communities under varying regulatory schemes, leveraging different financing mechanisms and using different technologies can work within grid constraints and find optimisations. The crucial common aspect is cooperation within the community to fully control decentralised local energy systems. This leads to a secure, sustainable and decarbonised energy supply with all actors along the energy value chain engaged.

Highlights:

  • Results obtained by real implementation of the solutions and progress beyond pure research and theoretical models using active communication
  • 13 consortium partners achieved important innovations in all pilots
  • First of its kind approach whole-community approach in Slovenia


About the Practice:

The project aims to empower local energy systems and to enable optimal integration and control of all the energy vectors, storage and electromobility options to maximise decarbonisation and energy savings while fostering the creation of energy communities. It creates new ways to stimulate actors in the value
chain to cooperate to maximise the societal benefit, foster the adoption of the technological solutions and enable a large-scale replication of the developed technological solutions and business models.

This practice was the winner of the 2021 'Good Practice of the Year' award in the category of Communication and Engagement.

More Info:

COMPILE, concluded successfully in October 2022, achieved all of its objectives in a span of four years, highlighting notable accomplishments. Firstly, it established or upgraded five fully operational pilot sites in Slovenia, Croatia, Portugal, Spain, and Greece. Alongside this, the project developed and implemented four technical tools and two support tools. Furthermore, COMPILE provided the European Commission with 51 deliverables and 19 scientific publications. It actively engaged with the public, participating in over 120 events and reaching over a million people through the showcasing of COMPILE videos at Petrol's (largest energy company in Slovenia) stations and the wider region. These achievements were recognised with three European prizes and numerous national awards.

In addition to its overall success, COMPILE generated three key innovations. The Slovenian pilot site in Luče showcased advanced RES control, which allowed for the installation of three times more renewables than the weak power grid initially permitted. Luče also demonstrated the successful operation of battery island mode. Moreover, the project developed the Maturity Scale Framework, a tool widely used in several countries to establish energy communities.

COMPILE played a pivotal role in driving the energy community movement in Slovenia, Croatia, Portugal, and other nations. Although the project has concluded, its ideas and innovations continue to be utilised not only within the EU but also in countries like India and China.

RGI gratefully acknowledges the EU LIFE funding support:

EU LIFE funding support Logo

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the LIFE Programme. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.