Can socially run citizen-led independent local energy cooperatives running small renewable energy power plants in wind, solar, hydro, geothermal etc. significantly increase energy security?
Monopolistically operating large energy companies, including mainly government-controlled state-owned companies, apply pricing policies that are not conducive to the development of renewable energy sources in the form of small household power plants set up by citizens, who would thus become prosumers of electricity. This point is also confirmed by the pricing policy applied by these large energy companies, which are government-controlled SOEs in the context of the 2022 energy crisis. In addition, it has happened over the past few years that in areas where such power plants have been set up as part of solar or wind power, they have produced so much electricity in situations of high sunshine or strong winds that the technologically outdated and underinvested transmission power grids have not been able to absorb this electricity produced by prosumer citizens. This is a kind of paradoxical and almost surreal situation in a country facing a serious energy crisis in 2022 due to the still existing archaic energy model based 3/4 on the production of electricity and even more on thermal energy from burning coal and lignite. It is therefore necessary to develop independent, local cooperatives running small renewable energy power plants, i.e. independent of large energy companies, including government-controlled state-owned companies with monopolistic pricing policies, limiting the development of renewable energy sources by citizens and increasingly portraying themselves in the media in advertising and umbrella campaigns as green, generating energy mainly from renewable energy sources which is at variance with the facts, so is an example of greenwashing. In view of the above, the development of local cooperatives operating small renewable energy power plants can significantly reduce the scale of monopolistic participation of large energy companies in the entire energy sector and thus can significantly increase the energy security of citizens and the security of the national energy sector.
In view of the above, I address the following question to the esteemed community of scientists and researchers:
Can socially run independent local energy cooperatives by citizens running small renewable energy power plants in wind, solar, hydro, geothermal etc. significantly increase energy security?
And what is your opinion on this?
What is your opinion on this subject?
Please respond,
I invite you all to discuss,
Thank you very much,
Warm regards,
Dariusz Prokopowicz
It has been disussed here where small local projects are power through renewable energy particularly solar and supporting the grid
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Dear Dariusz Prokopowicz ,
there is not a real economy of scale in photovoltaic for example in large facilities, since the energy per unit area is the same for big or small installations.
Although the CAPEX unit area, for a large plant (>1 MW) is in general lower than a small installation on a roof, we have also to consider that the area on roofs is in most cases for free and provides also thermal insulation especially during the summer. Said that, disptach of elerctricity is cumbersome and lossy.
So the local energy community, which uses and stores 80-90% of the energy produced, is the winner, since it contributes also to stabilze the overall network. Big players always tried to slow down this alternative. The autonomous community is dangerous for whom wants to hold the power...
Surely and definitely, yes. Disrupting or destroying distributed generation is far more difficult than disrupting a critical transmission line or a large power plant.
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