TY - JOUR
T1 - Analysing community-based initiatives for heating and cooling
T2 - A systematic and critical review
AU - Fouladvand, Javanshir
AU - Ghorbani, Amineh
AU - Mouter, Niek
AU - Herder, Paulien
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - Energy communities are decentralized socio-technical systems where energy is jointly generated and distributed among a community of households locally. As the energy that is shared among the community is commonly electricity, the energy community's literature is dominated by electricity-systems and mostly neglects collective thermal energy as an alternative energy carrier for heating and cooling. Our goal in this article is to organise the existing research on “community-based initiatives for heating and cooling ” by using the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework, and based on this analysis, identify a future research agenda. Our analysis reveals that the number of publications in this area has been growing fast recently, focusing on technological challenges. Fewer papers take an institutional point of view, in which they cover policies, price reforms and values. The institutionally oriented papers focus on solar thermal energy and bio-based thermal energy. Other thermal technologies, such as geothermal wells, are largely neglected in the literature, but are known to have different institutional constraints. Informal rules and values are mainly researched from a consumer perspective. Since energy communities often consist of consumers and prosumers, additional research is warranted into this area. Evaluative criteria for such communities are limited to economic aspects and greenhouse gas emissions, while indicators such as soil pollution and spatial planning that may play an equally important role are neglected. We recommend studying thermal energy communities as distinctive entities with their own unique characteristics, and we develop a research agenda for this purpose.
AB - Energy communities are decentralized socio-technical systems where energy is jointly generated and distributed among a community of households locally. As the energy that is shared among the community is commonly electricity, the energy community's literature is dominated by electricity-systems and mostly neglects collective thermal energy as an alternative energy carrier for heating and cooling. Our goal in this article is to organise the existing research on “community-based initiatives for heating and cooling ” by using the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework, and based on this analysis, identify a future research agenda. Our analysis reveals that the number of publications in this area has been growing fast recently, focusing on technological challenges. Fewer papers take an institutional point of view, in which they cover policies, price reforms and values. The institutionally oriented papers focus on solar thermal energy and bio-based thermal energy. Other thermal technologies, such as geothermal wells, are largely neglected in the literature, but are known to have different institutional constraints. Informal rules and values are mainly researched from a consumer perspective. Since energy communities often consist of consumers and prosumers, additional research is warranted into this area. Evaluative criteria for such communities are limited to economic aspects and greenhouse gas emissions, while indicators such as soil pollution and spatial planning that may play an equally important role are neglected. We recommend studying thermal energy communities as distinctive entities with their own unique characteristics, and we develop a research agenda for this purpose.
KW - Energy community
KW - Institutional analysis and development
KW - Renewable energy technologies
KW - Systematic literature review
KW - Thermal energy community
KW - Thermal energy system
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85123199098&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.erss.2022.102507
DO - 10.1016/j.erss.2022.102507
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85123199098
SN - 2214-6296
VL - 88
JO - Energy Research and Social Science
JF - Energy Research and Social Science
M1 - 102507
ER -