{"id":1575,"date":"2020-06-27T22:10:08","date_gmt":"2020-06-27T22:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.regalgrid.com\/magazine\/la-vita-in-condominio-ai-tempi-dellautoconsumo\/"},"modified":"2024-09-25T13:03:57","modified_gmt":"2024-09-25T13:03:57","slug":"condominium-self-consumption","status":"publish","type":"magazine","link":"https:\/\/regalgrid.com\/en\/magazine\/condominium-self-consumption\/","title":{"rendered":"Condominium living in the age of energy self-consumption"},"content":{"rendered":"

Living in a condominium is not always a bed of roses. There are certainly advantages in many cases, yet at the same time, sharing with others can be a challenge: common areas, maintenance, shared costs and responsibilities. But now you will be happy to take the rough with the smooth, because\u00a0the energy world needs your help<\/strong>\u00a0and can offer you great opportunities in return. The time has come to ask yourself not only what the world of energy can do for you in terms of consumption and savings, but also what you can do in the world of energy through informed, sustainable and community-based decisions.<\/p>\n

In the context of the current\u00a0energy revolution<\/strong>, condominiums and commonholds are becoming a prized target, as investment in\u00a0energy efficiency and independence<\/strong>\u00a0of these types of property ownership structures seems to be\u00a0the key<\/strong>\u00a0to hitting national sustainability targets.<\/p>\n

In fact, relative legislation is moving towards full adoption of the European RED II Directive by 2021 (you can read more about this in\u00a0our article on Energy Communities<\/a>), incentivising actions for environmental sustainability and shared consumption of self-generated electricity.<\/p>\n

But why condominiums?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The role of condominiums in the energy revolution<\/h2>\n

Strength in numbers<\/h3>\n

Many people living in an apartment or managing a building with multiple real-estate units are perhaps still unaware of the fundamental role that they can play in the energy revolution. First of all, there is a simple\u00a0question of numbers<\/strong>: this type of property ownership is\u00a0widespread in Italy<\/strong>, but also\u00a0across Europe<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

According to the most recent\u00a0Eurostat<\/a>\u00a0data, the European countries where condominiums have become particularly widespread in the last decade include\u00a0Latvia<\/strong>\u00a0(66.2% living in condominiums),\u00a0Spain<\/strong>\u00a0(64.9%),\u00a0Switzerland<\/strong>\u00a0(62.5%) and\u00a0Estonia<\/strong>\u00a0(61.5%). This trend is significantly greater than the European average of just 41.9% in the same year (EU28, 2013-2020).<\/p>\n

Succeeding in involving this quantity of residential properties in\u00a0progressive growth<\/strong>\u00a0of\u00a0energy savings\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0use of renewables<\/strong>\u00a0would mean a huge step forward towards achievement of the United Nations sustainability goals, not just for Italy but across Europe.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Condominium-based photovoltaics for collective self-consumption<\/h3>\n

Another factor that should not be overlooked is the possibility of collective self-consumption in condominium and commonhold settings, as defined by the European RED II Directive. You could therefore take this opportunity for a new challenge:\u00a0taking advantage of photovoltaic systems<\/strong>\u00a0not only for\u00a0consumption in common areas<\/strong>\u00a0or for central heating systems, but also for the\u00a0individual real-estate units<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

But what is the real challenge? To convince the homeowners association of the need to contribute to the planet’s well-being with installation of a photovoltaic system and storage technology. Here is a solid argument that you can use:\u00a0consuming clean energy\u00a0<\/strong>gives you the opportunity to have a positive impact on the environment, reducing pollution and making your contribution to the\u00a0achievement of national targets<\/strong>, but it also means a concrete personal advantage in the form of\u00a0savings on your energy bills<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Condominiums used to launch energy communities<\/h3>\n

Condominium properties<\/strong>\u00a0therefore represent the\u00a0perfect solution to share clean energy<\/strong>\u00a0between different users, or POD (points of delivery). Why is this? One determining factor is certainly that collective\u00a0self-consumption<\/strong>\u00a0occurs\u00a0prior to energy entering the low-voltage national grid,<\/strong>\u00a0eliminating complex variables in this initial phase of growth in energy communities. Ensuring efficient operation of a closed system is the first step towards optimisation of sharing on the low-voltage grid. This is why collective self-consumption pilot projects have been launched across Europe, such as the\u00a0Renaissance project<\/a>, with the aim of\u00a0cost\/benefit analysis<\/strong>\u00a0of energy, environment, social and economic factors and\u00a0identification of possible technical, legislative and administrative barriers<\/strong>\u00a0to\u00a0optimise development of the solution<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Are you asking yourself whether you can\u00a0already launch a similar project<\/strong>? Maybe you are wondering whether the\u00a0self-generated energy can be allocated<\/strong>\u00a0amongst the various real-estate units of a condominium? The answer to both of these questions is:\u00a0absolutely<\/strong>! But more importantly, how? The most intuitive solution could seem to be dividing up the energy into small units for equal division between the different users. However, this does not suit the\u00a0differing energy requirements<\/strong>\u00a0arising from\u00a0different consumption profiles of households within the condominium building<\/strong>. For independence of the ecosystem, it is necessary to provide energy to users as and when they need it, managing and keeping track of quotas allocated and consumed for each user.<\/p>\n

This is not a simple task, but this is exactly where\u00a0Regalgrid<\/strong>\u00a0comes to your aid. Our\u00a0platform<\/strong>\u00a0performs precisely this task,\u00a0digitally managing energy<\/strong>\u00a0through\u00a0real-time monitoring of energy flows<\/strong>\u00a0using\u00a0SNOCUs<\/strong>. These are gateways typically equipped with a smart meter that control the individual PODs, the photovoltaic system and the storage system. Let’s look at exactly how it works. Each condominium will have a single\u00a0consumer SNOCU unit<\/strong>\u00a0connected near to the meter, along with a single\u00a0storage SNOCU<\/strong>\u00a0that controls the whole photovoltaic ecosystem and storage technology and that communicates with the platform in real time. This allows the condominium to be recognised by the Regalgrid\u00ae platform as a community that shares local generation and storage of energy whilst tracing where this energy is consumed and allocated in the case of excess or deficit (fed into or withdrawn from the external grid). The\u00a0head of the homeowners association<\/strong>\u00a0can also act as the administrator for the\u00a0energy community<\/strong>\u00a0(although this role can be assigned elsewhere) and will be able to monitor system operation via a\u00a0dedicated login<\/strong>.\u00a0Each individual real-estate unit<\/strong>\u00a0within the condominium structure will have its\u00a0own individual login\u00a0<\/strong>to\u00a0check usage<\/strong>\u00a0and overall energy performance of the community to which it belongs.<\/p>\n

With Regalgrid’s help, you can therefore share the benefits of optimising energy flows, economic savings and low environmental impacts: common benefits that coincide with the interests of the individual through use of sustainable solar power.<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":4340,"parent":0,"template":"","category-magazine":[40],"class_list":["post-1575","magazine","type-magazine","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-magazine-energy-community"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regalgrid.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/magazine\/1575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regalgrid.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/magazine"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regalgrid.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/magazine"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/regalgrid.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/magazine\/1575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4342,"href":"https:\/\/regalgrid.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/magazine\/1575\/revisions\/4342"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regalgrid.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regalgrid.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category-magazine","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regalgrid.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/category-magazine?post=1575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}