Overview
In 2020, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment prepared legislative amendments
which would improve local energy communities’ possibilities to consume and share self-generated energy within a local energy community. These amendments into the Government Decree entered into force in January 2021. New provisions facilitate distribution of self- generated electricity among the community or the group of active customers on the same property or group of properties. The regulation allows netting of electricity input and output through the same meter to the distribution grid within imbalance settlement period. This includes also dividing feed-in from the generation to the members of the community or group in the balance settlement. These amendments facilitate e.g. establishing local energy communities within housing cooperatives where a cooperative invests in joint solar panels in the rooftop and the electricity from the panels will be shared among the members of the cooperative.
The regulation also applies, under defined prerequisites, to individual end-users and thus improves their opportunities to utilize self-generated electricity as well. The decree stipulates the rules for netting of consumption and production in the balance settlement and calculating the compensation of jointly produced electricity for each consumption point. The transitional period of the decree ended on January 1, 2023, and since then the netting and calculation on compensation inside the imbalance settlement period shall be offered by the Datahub. Prior to this, and as regards the calculation of compensation until the June 30, 2023, the provisions allowed DSOs voluntarily to provide these services in their distribution network for members of the local energy communities or the group of active customers
Summary of regulations
- Establishment of local energy communities recognised in decrees 767/2021 and 590/2013
- Energy communities have a legal personality
- Individuals, municipalities, and small and medium-sized enterprises can form energy communities
- Energy sharing of self-generated electricity is possible within the same building or a group of buildings
- Prosumers have a possibility for balance settlement
