Challenges for the Participation of Apartment Owners in Energy Communities
Scientific Problems of Engineering Economics of Construction and Real Estate Management, Regional and Territorial Development ICEREE’2022: Book of Abstracts 2022
Mārtiņš Auders, Ineta Geipele, Sanda Lapuķe

Latvia as other European Union (hereinafter – EU) member states must become climate neutral by 2050. Energy communities are one of the key elements in achieving the EU’s energy transition by 2050: half of Europe’s population could produce up to half of EU’s renewable energy. In Latvia the energy consumed in the building sector (households) accounts for up to 30% of the entire energy sector, therefore the building sector includes significant potential in achieving the overall energy efficiency goals. Taking into account the fact that the area of apartment buildings in Latvia is almost one quartet of the area of all buildings and while most apartment buildings belong to several owners are divided into apartment properties, the successful involvement of apartment owners’ associations in energy communities is essential for achieving energy goals. At the EU level the regulation of energy communities is included in the Directive (EU) 2019/944 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 5 June 2019 on common rules for the internal market for electricity and amending Directive 2012/27/EU, as well as in the Directive (EU) 2018/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2018 on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources. The requirements of the abovementioned directives were transposed in Latvia’s regulation by amendments to the Electricity Market Law and to the Energy Law. However, it does not follow from the definition of the energy community included in the Energy Law providing that the community of apartment owners can itself be an energy community. In addition, the law does not provide that apartment owners associations can act as a member of a wider energy community. Therefore, it can be concluded that when making amendments to the Energy Law, the concept of community of apartment owners is not taken into account, so it creates significant risks for the involvement of multi-apartment residential buildings in energy communities.


Keywords
energy communities, energy efficiency, EU Directive, renewable energy
Hyperlink
https://buni.rtu.lv/wp-content/uploads/sites/68/2022/09/ICEREE-abstracts_2022-web.pdf

Auders, M., Geipele, I., Lapuķe, S. Challenges for the Participation of Apartment Owners in Energy Communities. In: Scientific Problems of Engineering Economics of Construction and Real Estate Management, Regional and Territorial Development ICEREE’2022: Book of Abstracts, Latvia, Riga, 29-30 September, 2022. Riga: RTU Press, 2022, pp.29-29. ISSN 2592-9372.

Publication language
English (en)
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