In January 2024, I completed a Master of Science in Sustainability in Energy Provision and Demand Management from the Centre for Alternative Technology Graduate School of the Environment.

For my dissertation, for which I received a distinction grade, I created a prototype software (CELESTE) designed to educate, inspire, and empower users to develop their own Renewable Energy Communities in France. Click the button below to view the full dissertation, or continue scrolling to read the Abstract, Introduction, Results intro, and Conclusion.

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Abstract

In response to a significant knowledge gap in the discourse on Renewable Energy Communities (RECs), this dissertation endeavours to empower non-experts and amplify community engagement in France through the development of the CELESTE (Créons des Énergies Locales, Écologiques, Solidaires et Transformatrices Ensemble) Decision Support System (DSS).

RECs have been identified as a key component of meeting global net-zero carbon goals, and they have accordingly been enjoying an increased amount of scholarly attention. Yet current literature predominantly focuses on technical, economic, and policy dimensions of RECs, and the lack of emphasis on educating and involving the broader public remains a critical barrier. Notably, the few studies that do try to determine the level of public awareness regarding RECs, find it to be very low, revealing an underserved need for public education. Despite the increasing focus on digitalization, explicit integration of digital tools for educating and empowering the public in renewable energy is conspicuously absent. When digital tools are employed in the field of renewable energy, they are overwhelmingly skewed towards expert users, and fail to include the context and education necessary to involve non-expert stakeholders. Meanwhile, evidence highlights the transformative potential of Decision Support Systems (DSS) in fostering education and empowerment. This insight propels the development of CELESTE, a DSS uniquely tailored to meet the specific needs of non-expert users.

Employing a multifaceted approach, the research includes collating a wide range of online resources and databases selected for integration into CELESTE; and a qualitative survey designed in alignment with principles of the Future Energy Landscapes methodology which captures the perspectives of citizens associated with or adjacent to RECs, shedding light on their information needs and awareness levels.

Built as a proof-of-concept in Google Sheets, CELESTE represents a prototype with the vision of evolving into a more sophisticated model which could be adopted for customisation all over the world. CELESTE acts as an inclusive and educational tool that facilitates citizens' understanding of renewable energy systems, offering personalized insights into the potential and benefits of community-driven initiatives, and directing the user to existing organisations supporting RECs in their area. By combining real-world case studies, survey responses, and the technological capabilities of CELESTE, this research not only proposes a solution to a prevalent knowledge gap but also propels communities towards a more informed, engaged, and sustainable energy future.

Introduction

It is widely acknowledged that in order to meet global net-zero carbon goals and mitigate the worst effects of man-made climate change, fossil fuel generation must be replaced to a large extent by renewable energy resources (Dincer and Rosen, 1999, 2021; Nakićenović and IPCC, 2000; Edenhofer et al., 2011; MacKay, 2011).

Renewable Energy Communities (RECs) have been identified as a key component of meeting these goals, and ensuring a just energy transition as per the Paris Agreement, which via a commitment to deep democracy, redistributes power and resources among communities, reduces inequality, and prioritises racial, economic, and gender justice (UNFCCC, 2018; Lowitzsch et al., 2020; Vernay et al., 2023; Climate Justice Alliance, no date). RECs are difficult to define, but for the purposes of this dissertation they will be understood in terms of the EU’s recast of the Renewable Energy Directive (RED II) 2018/2001/EU (Official Journal, 2018), which describes them as legal entities which involve citizen participation as prosumers; customers who create in the production of that which they also partially consume (Filho et al., 2024). They are incorporated as non-commercial market actors who combine both non-commercial economic aims with environmental and social community aims (Joint Research Centre (European Commission) et al., 2020). They share open and voluntary governance, shared ownership and control by members, and have as a main purpose creating social and environmental benefits instead of financial profits.

As per the EU, there exist two main kinds of energy community: RECs, which are concerned specifically with renewable energy sources, and Citizens Energy Communities (CECs) which encompasses all kinds of energy generation (Joint Research Centre (European Commission) et al., 2020). These definitions were introduced in RED II (Official Journal, 2018) and in the Internal Electricity Market Directive 2019/944/EU (Piselli et al., 2022). Published in 2018 and coming into effect in 2019, REC II established the right for members to produce, consume, store, and sell their own renewable energy without facing excessive charges or administrative barriers, and crucially, required member states to “provide an enabling framework to promote and facilitate the development of renewable energy communities”, including tools and facilities to access finance and information (Official Journal, 2018; Santos, 2023). This commitment to RECs has since be reinforced by the latest revision (RED III), which raises the EU’s renewable energy targets (42.5% by 2030), removing and reducing administrative barriers to producers of renewable energy, and specifically calling for their inclusion in off-shore wind joint projects, recommending that they be consulted to anticipate skills shortages around renewable energy installations, and requiring that Member States provide flexibility services such as batteries and electric vehicles in order to facilitate the entry of RECs into electricity markets (Official Journal, 2023).

The EU has made clear commitments to RECs, and when done well, RECs are lauded for decentralising energy systems (Johnson and Hall, 2014), improving energy justice (Hanke et al., 2021), and energy democracy, (Wahlund and Palm, 2022), increasing energy literacy (Rogers et al., 2008), and generally fighting inequalities and energy poverty (Brummer, 2018).

Framed in such terms RECs appear to be a shining beacon of hope, a lighthouse in the choppy waters of social and technical upheaval induced by climate change. Yet in France, they are little-known, poorly understood, and poorly supported in practice.

France has a long history of centralized, top-down energy governance (Sovacool et al., 2021; Wainer et al., 2022). Immediately following the end of World War II, the French government established the company Electricité de France (EDF) as a state-owned monopoly which absorbed thousands of individual energy actors in order to create a secure and cohesive national energy distribution system (Frost, 1985). The centralisation of the French energy system under EDF accelerated sharply in the 1970’s, following the oil crises of that decade, and the decision to integrate nuclear power as a cornerstone of French energy policy (Sovacool et al., 2021). The nuclearization of the French energy supply, which went hand-in-hand with the development of nuclear weaponry, however, had the impact of creating a closed, secretive, and militarized system, with access limited to elite decision-makers, an un-democratic system that has even been described as a “nucleocracy” (Sovacool et al., 2021).

New energy actors have only very recently begun to prise the French energy market from the vice-like grip of EDF, beginning with a 2007 EU directive that started the process of opening up electrical generation, transmission, distribution, supply and trading competition to all EU residents (CMS, 2015). However, EDF still dominates the market in both generation and supply (Sebi and Vernay, 2020).

This centralist structure is far from the polycentrism that has been identified as helpful to the development of energy communities in Europe (Anfinson et al., 2023), and has been blamed for turning French consumers into passive actors who are disengaged and uneducated about their own energy systems (Sovacool et al., 2021). This, combined with the various broader obstacles to developing more energy communities, including regulatory and administrative obstacles and awareness and education (European Commission Directorate-General for Energy, 2023) means that France is seriously lagging behind on REC goals. As such, enabling the development of more RECs, by engaging a broader range of people, by providing access to a knowledge-building, decisions support tool aimed specifically at a non-expert user, is the aim of this research.

As someone who came to the field of renewable energy with no scientific background, this dissertation author understands the need to develop tools to reach people like her: engaged and interested, but not sure where to start. The idea for the research topic was first born during an on-site study period, when students were asked to assess the REC potential of the village of Abercegir, Wales. Imagining thousands of small communities all over Europe (and the world) conducting the same rudimentary assessment felt absurd: even assuming each community would have access to the knowledge and resources to conduct such a survey, the time and labour spent calculating the same sums, searching for and drawing upon the same basic databases, making the same mistakes and then finding the same solutions thousands of times over would be a tremendous waste of time. Surely there is an easier, more efficient way? Thus was born the idea of building a program which would draw upon the wide range of freely available data to provide simplified feasibility assessment for renewable energy communities, needing only the users’ geographic location, and their willingness to engage in the process of imagining their energy future, to work.

If it would be possible to build such a program, what it would require, and how it would work became the central research question of this dissertation, to be answered via the development of a prototype. The objectives were as follows: to identify the output modules required (i.e. a module which describes the energy consumption of the users’ village); to identify the kind of data required to feed such modules (i.e. a governmental source of historical electrical consumption, by geographic location); to identify the actual sources of the data (i.e. the electricity network operator website in the case of external inputs); or describe the kind of question required to be asked of the user in the case of user inputs (i.e. “What is your village called?”); and to identify any gaps where external data is unavailable.

Philosophies underpinning the approach to research included ‘Keep it Simple Stupid’, ‘don’t reinvent the wheel’, and, to paraphrase the Centre for Alternative Technology website, ‘we already have all the tools we need’. (Centre for Alternative Technology, no date).

This research idea might have been first born of the desire to design a more efficient way of approaching the REC feasibility question, but it found its home in the discourse as a response to knowledge gap around RECs. Many French people do not know that RECs exist, and if they do know about them, they are not likely to engage with them unless they are white, male, middle-aged or older, and already have a high level of education and knowledge around renewable energy topics.

The review of literature confirmed that there is not only no research around how to improve awareness, and education around the topic of RECs, but very little acknowledgement that there is a gap, or that awareness and education are important aspects when it comes to RECs in general. Indeed only one document (Proka, 2023) explicitly stated a lack of awareness as a barrier to the development of RECs. The literature review also suggested that considering the strong interest in the topics of energy transition, RECs, and digitisation around energy, there should be a high potential to marry these concepts under one research topic and product, positioning CELESTE as being able to make a truly unique contribution to the field, in an under-researched area, with the potential to positively impact democratising the development of RECs.

Overall, the focus of literature around RECs concentrates on governance and ownership structures via in-depth case studies; technical optimisation (including involving various models and AI); and comprehensive discussions of what kind of policy, economic, and social barriers and enablers exist. In addition to the knowledge gap identified, other research gaps include studies that address the global south, co-benefits of RECs, and the lack of diversity among REC members.

This research journey was a process of ‘learning by doing’, CELESTE was built while at the same time determining if it could be built. The basic functioning and models were sketched out in a process of brainstorming, based on the authors knowledge of energy provision and demand management, and complemented via a qualitative survey.

France, where the author lives, has well-organized and clearly defined administrative geographic boundaries. Ranging from small entities (communes) to larger regions, these boundaries exist not only on the map but reflect the structure of French daily public life, and facilitate the organization of public data, creating a systematic filing system aligned with these administrative units. This, combined with extensive and well-maintained online public databases and resources, made it an ideal location for developing CELESTE. It quickly became clear that developing a tool like CELESTE would be achievable, and indeed it was possible to plug wonderfully complex datasets into a rudimentary spreadsheet, tying it all together with basic formulas and code. However, CELESTE is limited in scope in various ways. It is currently only developed for France, and with a limited number of test sites. It contains a small number of modules, and is constrained by using what is available, rather than developing new complex models. Therefore, because (for example) there is currently no credible demonstrated relationship between Degree Days (DDs) and air conditioner use in France, this cannot be included. Yet the modular, expandable nature of the tool makes it possible for it to grow and develop in the future according to relevant research, and the competences of the developers.

Results

This dissertation is accompanied by a digital artefact, the CELESTE Decision Support Tool. CELESTE stands for Créons des Énergies Locales, Écologiques, Solidaires et Transformatrices Ensemble (Creating Local, Ecological, Supportive and Transformative Energy Together), licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International.

It is available for inspection via the following link: http://tinyurl.com/celestedss.

It shall hereafter be referred to simply as CELESTE. The aim of CELESTE is to allow any stakeholder of any commune in Mainland France, to gain an understanding of their commune’s energy use and needs, the feasibility of building Solar Photovoltaic (PV) and On-shore Wind renewable energy communities (RECs) in their immediate area; the impact these would have on the commune in terms of electrical consumption, CO2 emissions, and economic savings; similar REC projects in the wider area; and the appropriate associations and contacts to begin the process of realising an REC.

A principle that is central to CELESTE is the idea of using the wealth of information relating to energy (specifically electricity) systems, renewable energy generation, and the impacts of climate change upon such systems, that is already available, and re-formulating it into a way that is appropriate for the end user, rather than developing new models, and systems, or conducting complex analysis.

Conclusion

During the course of this dissertation research, the DSS CELESTE, was successfully developed. CELESTE allows users to input geographical information, understand current electricity consumption, envision future scenarios, conduct a simplified feasibility assessment of solar PV and on-shore wind REC projects, and connect with various local associations and projects in the REC domain. It addresses a knowledge gap by enabling individuals with little to no knowledge of renewable energy to explore the creation of a REC in their community. CELESTE presents publicly available data in small, digestible portions, explains key concepts in plain language, and contextualizes figures for better comprehension. By allowing users to adjust variables and understand the impact of changes on load profiles, CELESTE promotes engagement and a sense of ownership for the project. It also showcases similar nearby projects to inspire and empower users.

While CELESTE can be further elaborated and improved, it currently fulfils its core function, demonstrating the feasibility of developing a user-friendly, interactive, and informative program for non-experts to explore and initiate RECs. The online research to identify appropriate databases was successful, facilitated by the abundance of data made available by the French government and associated agencies. Key insights from the qualitative survey included valuable suggestions for program integration, reinforcing the researcher's choices. Although the survey findings did not significantly impact CELESTE, they confirmed the validity of the author's decisions.

Implications of CELESTE extend beyond its dissertation origins. The hope is for CELESTE to evolve into a fully developed, market-ready program that attracts government or other funding and support. As developing RECs aligns with net-zero targets, CELESTE could play a pivotal role in this effort. Due to its modular structure and reliance on freely accessible online databases, CELESTE could be easily adapted by interested groups outside of France to meet their local conditions and needs. The creation of additional modules, accessible through a module hub, could strengthen knowledge-sharing ties between RECs globally, contributing to countries reaching their renewable energy generation and REC targets.

In terms of the research journey, at first, tackling this topic seemed challenging, but as the realization dawned that a working artefact needed to be created, the process became more manageable. The suggestion by Alan Owen to structure the dissertation as a 'user guide' was not only welcome but proved to be a valuable approach, and the author was ultimately able to achieve what she set out to do.

The author had aspired to establish stronger connections with associations and groups engaged in RECs, as well as broader energy and sustainability policies. However, this proved to challenging. The hope is that, once the dissertation is complete, forging these connections will become more feasible, and that this individually developed project could go on to have a wider impact.