Sharing solar with your neighbour: How does the EU electricity market design unlock energy sharing?

The European Commission recently made energy sharing a key pillar of the electricity market reform. From 2024, energy sharing will unlock new roads to market for rooftop solar. 

While on-site solar is booming - 138 GW of solar was installed on Europe’s buildings in 2022 and the capacity should double by 2026 - the existing frameworks limit its financial and decarbonization potential. Individual self-consumption leaves limited options to market excess generation and it is not accessible to all consumers, such as renters and consumers in multi-apartment buildings. It’s unclear if the existing frameworks for collective actions such as energy communities will mobilise major parts of the EU population. 

Energy sharing allows citizens to share self-generated electricity with their neighbours on a contractual basis. It offers: 

High returns for generators: Energy sharing allows owners to share excess energy with nearby consumers.  

Everybody can receive solar electricity as an off-taker, independent of housing conditions and they receive it at a price which is usually significantly lower than supplier prices.  

Energy sharing can reduce grid constraints: The price difference between shared electricity and supplier electricity will incentivise load shifting and therefore counteracts grid congestion.  

In our webinar, the European Commission will present its reasoning behind this new article, a system operator will describe the integration into distribution grids, a consumer rights organization will speak about implications for consumers and a solar company will contribute with the options for solar deployment.  

We will present our new report on a regulatory framework for energy sharing, which we called collective self-consumption. Based on a description of the potential for the solar sector, we will discuss details of the regulatory proposals by the European Commission.  

Agenda 

Moderated discussion by Jan Osenberg, Policy Advisor at SolarPower Europe 

10:00 – 10:05 : Welcoming words 

             Naomi Chevillard, Head of Regulatory Affairs at SolarPower Europe 

10:05 – 10:15 : Presentation of SolarPower Europe's report on collective self-consumption

             Sofia Barbosa, Head of Regulatory Affairs at Greenvolt, chair-woman of the Buildings & Prosumers Workstream at SolarPower Europe

10:15 – 11:00 : Moderated discussion on the regulatory framework for collective self-consumption

             Achille Hannoset, Policy Officer responsible for energy sharing, DG ENER 

             Sofia Barbosa, Head of Regulatory Affairs at Greenvolt 

             Torsten Knop, European Regulation, E.ON

             Jörg Mühlenhoff, Senior Energy Policy Officer, BEUC