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tied
to the amount of energy sold, we should not expect any significant decreases in
energy use (6).
2.2.
RES integration into power networks and the necessity of digitalisation
The new technological developments and political decisions with respect to
decarbonisation (with the use of renewable energy sources) of the electricity production
sector but also industry, households and public sector push the electricity companies to
adjust their network in order to integrate generation based on renewable energy and
provide for the two-ways
interaction with the consumers, allowing not only supply
electricity to them, but also receive electricity produced by a variety of renewable energy
based generators belonging to consumers.
The intermittent nature of variable solar and wind generation and especially integrating
them into the power grid in large quantities requires from the electricity companies more
sophisticated technical solutions (i.e. to stability problems) and economic management of
their network. Digital technologies and data become more vital to forecast and balancing
electrical supply and demand. In addition, they can improve efficiency, resilience, and
reduce emissions and costs.
Power generation from renewable sources demands more flexibility from the electricity
network, and although in the short term the electricity grid of Uzbekistan seems to have
adequate level
of flexibility, with a foreseen growth of the renewable energy generation
energy storage
will become more and more important in order to ensure flexibility of the
electricity network.
The energy storage technologies are still under development and there is no winning
technology from both economic, technical and environmental point of view. In Europe
the first guiding documents on a definition and principles for energy storage were
published by the European Commission in June 2016, a staff working document on the
role of electricity in energy storage was published in 2017.
These principles were
subsequently reflected in the Clean Energy for all Europeans package, adopted in 2019.
The main energy storage reservoir in the EU is by far pumped hydro storage, but batteries
projects are rising, according to a study on energy storage published in May 2020.
Batteries, a variety of new technologies to store electricity are developing at a fast pace
and are increasingly becoming more market-competitive (7). They, however still have
high cost, relatively small lifetime and are harmful for environment if not properly
retired.
In the US, even when including large pumped hydro plants, energy storage accounts for
only 24 GW of peak demand of nearly 840 GW. There is less than 1 GW of battery
storage and 0.8 GW from thermal storage (8).
2.3.Decentralised and Decarbonised energy
In the medium term the EU Digital Strategy (9) creates framework
to enable consumers to
benefit from domestic energy sources such as solar panels and community-owned wind
turbines. In practical terms it means participation of consumers in energy communities
and collective self-consumption schemes, taking advantage of their own solar panel
generation and benefit from lower cost electricity than buying from the grid. The
provisions for Renewable Energy Communities (RECs) and Citizen Energy Communities
(CECs) are set in the Renewable Energy Directive and the Electricity Market Directive.
To our opinion, the reason for this strategy development is the declining interest from the
individuals and/or small communities in using renewable energy sources for various
reasons, but mainly due to need of high upfront investment.
The examples of the working RECs and CECs presented on the relevant website of the
EC (10) so far include mainly various toolkits and guidelines
on how to organize an
energy community both in the terms of legal requirements and social interactions. The
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technological solutions are represented for example by the bulk purchase of energy
efficient appliances. Germany has achieved 57% share of the electricity generated with
the renewable energy (11) and the small community-based generation constituted almost
25% of total electricity generated with the renewable energy. Nevertheless, the successful
development of the renewable energy projects owned by small communities in Germany,
which peaked in 2010 has declined with the withdrawal of the feed-in-tariffs starting from
1 January 2021. The development of the solar and wind-based electricity generation is
continued mainly by utility scale installations. It is assumed that the old community
projects will not be replaced with the end of their lifetime (12) as under the tariffs
established without state support small scale renewable generation is not feasible.
Thus, promotion of small-scale renewable energy-based generators (RECs and CECs)
require more additional
supportive solutions, including technological, legal, economic
and social framework.
