GreenPocket is the software partner in the research project "eCREW" of the Energy Institute Linz which supports the expansion and trade of renewable energies. The goal is to create incentives for the supply of renewable energy sources and thereby promote the energy transition. What exactly does the project involve, what advantages does it bring for energy suppliers and households and what role does GreenPocket play?
Supporting the expansion of solar communities and renewable energies
"establishing Community Renewable Energy Webs" (eCREW) focuses on the introduction of an innovative collaboration between households in terms of energy production and consumption. This involves so-called solar communities (i.e. a group of households) that share the energy they produce themselves and thus, prevent surplus energy from not being consumed. What makes the project special is that only a single household needs to have a renewable energy source but several households benefit from it. Currently, this is a very relevant topic on the Austrian market: Here, energy communities also receive financial support by not having to pay green electricity subsidies and gridcosts.
The project was initiated by the Energy Institute Linz and is funded by the EU's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program. Next to the Energy Instititute, 10 partner companies consisting of energy suppliers, IT companies, and universities are involved in the project. During the 36 months of the project, the consumption as well as the energy exchange and -storage within and between the CREWs are analyzed. Based on these analyses, conclusions can be drawn about created incentives for active participation in the local energy system through collective actions, saved energy and costs.
Participating households benefit from low-cost energy procurement, as they receive the electricity at a lower market price. The administrative effort for registration and participation is kept as low as possible and it is not even necessary to purchase an own PV system. For utility companies, the special tariffs result in competitive advantages, since new customers are acquired and customer loyalty can be increased significantly. In addition, the higher willingness of project participants to invest in renewable energies improves the supplier’s image.They can also eliminate supply uncertainties and improve grid stability.
PEAKapp 2.0 -build onto the success
GreenPocket plays a special role in the project and generates further advantages for the participants with the smart visualization software: In addition to the transparent insight into their own consumption data, the software also offers an overview of the community’s entire production and consumption. We have already worked together with the Energy Institute Linz for the successfully completed research project "PEAKapp" and have expanded the EnergyCockpit with some gamification features. Those as well as the new benchmarking analysesof the CREWs among themselves increase the motivation to save energy.
International on climate neutrality
A total of 240,000 households from various European countries have the opportunity to form solar communities and become pioneers as pro and consumers, in order to increase the market acceptance for power communities in the long term. As a useful visualization tool, the EnergyCockpit is designed to help achieve annual energy savings of at least 6 gigawatt hours (within the project duration) using individual analyses and benchmarking. We are very pleased to be able to contribute to the energy transition and to pave the way for climate-neutral regions.
Which features will be integrated into the app is currently being discussed in usecase analyses. Stay up to date by subscribing to our newsletter!
