The Czech Republic has taken an important step toward true energycommunities. At the end of 2022, the country approved new regulations that will allow for shared production of electricity from renewable energy in apartment buildings. Until now, legislation did not allow forthe sharing of jointly produced electricity among households.

The new regulation will make it possible to distribute electricity produced from, for example, photovoltaic power plants among individual households. The regulation allows for the sharing of electricity by introducing a leading consumption point, which will be the only one in the building connected to the photovoltaic power plant on the roof. The system will allow access only to those households that express an interest in it, though at least half of the households need to agree. The produced electricity will be divided according to an allocation key to each participating household, thus reducing the energy bill. The excess electricity from the building can be sold through this consumption point to the grid.

Half of Czechs live in apartmentbuildings, so the potential of the roofs of such buildings is huge. Moreover, the apartment buildings can benefit from a support scheme administered by the National Environment Fund, which covers around half of the investment costs (including battery storage systems). The regulation has only been in place for a few months, and the coming months will show if it will work in reality. A full energy community legal framework is still not in place. Recently, the Ministry of Energy proposed new legislation allowing for energy communities similar to those in neighboring Austria, but the law has been delayed several times, and it is not certain it will pass the legislative process. Let’shope it does.

 

 

Photo by Minku Kang: https://www.pexels.com/photo/aerial-view-of-city-buildings-in-prague-czech-republic-6384390/