Eva Lanxmeer community in Culemborg is an already established sustainable urban demonstration site and community since the year 2000, when the first houses were built. The area consists of 320 households of which 50 are equipped with heat pump boiler combination, 100 with solar boiler. The 2/3 of the households are connected to district heating network, which is fed by central heat pump linked to a drinking water basin. Additionally, 2/3 houses have solar PV on their rooftops. Finally, 33 houses have a heat pump booster for producing warm tap water linked to the district heating grid.
The following business cases are implemented:
- Energy Community as Flexibility Aggregator
The Energy Community acts as Flexibility Aggregator for Ancillary Service provision to System Operators and Balance Responsible Parties, including network constraints management services, such as congestion management, and balancing services, such as frequency regulation.
- Energy Community as an Energy Service Company (ESCO)
The Energy Community acts as an ESCO, offering energy management services to community members, such as energy awareness and self-balancing on community level.
- Energy Community as a Retailer
Beyond the intra-community energy/flexibility exchange, the aggregated expected surplus or deficit of energy can be managed centrally and valorized through bilateral contracts with third-party retailers or through direct participation in the wholesale market.
- Prosumer engagement
By exposing the Prosumer to variable energy supply and/or network costs that are time-dependent (€/kWh) or depend on the maximum load (€/kW), Prosumers can be incentivized to shift their controllable load and/or generation in time