How can the effectiveness of a Renewable Energy Community be established? Specifically, how can we evaluate the equilibrium between production and consumption, alongside the potential socioeconomic and ecological impacts, prior to its implementation?
To answer these questions, the REC Manager – a data-driven platform designed to support the planning, simulation and monitoring of Renewable Energy Communities – has been developed as part of the European HERCULES-CE project.
The HERCULES-CE project, funded by the Interreg Central Europe programme, promotes the role of RECs as practical tools to support the energy transition across Central Europe. Within this framework, REC Manager is one of the project’s operational tools: a platform capable of using data and scenarios to help organisations, businesses, local communities and stakeholders make more informed assessments of a Renewable Energy Community’s potential.
What is REC Manager used for?
The REC Manager enables users to develop hypotheses and run simulations on the operation of an Energy Community (EC), analysing various scenarios relating to the composition of the community and the relationship between energy producers and consumers.
Through the platform, it is possible to simulate the creation of an Energy Community, monitor the performance of an existing community, and compare the results with those of other initiatives. The tool integrates functions relating to four main areas: business model, energy efficiency, environmental impact and energy poverty.
These features allows to analyse the possible causes of differing performance between RECs and to identify any corrective actions or improvements, with the aim of making each community more efficient and sustainable over time.
One of the main benefits of the REC Manager is, in fact, the ability to assess different scenarios in advance. In the case of a new Energy Community, for example, the tool can help determine which stakeholders to involve to maximise local energy consumption and support the community’s economic sustainability, what balance to strike between production and consumption, and which conditions can foster greater economic sustainability.
For businesses, citizens, local authorities and organisations interested in setting up an Energy Community, this means having a useful tool to guide decisions from the very early stages of the process, reducing uncertainty and making the assessment of expected benefits more concrete.
From trial phase to public availability
The REC Manager is currently being used and tested as part of the pilot activities of the HERCULES-CE project during a trial phase to assess its performance in real-world settings, collect data, evaluate user needs and progressively improve the tool.
At the end of the trial, approximately after the summer, the REC Manager will be launched and made available free of charge to all interested parties. It will therefore be an accessible tool for anyone wishing to explore, design or evaluate a Renewable Energy Community, helping to spread knowledge and skills useful for the energy transition.