Energy Security of Thermal Energy Communities

Energy Security of Thermal Energy Communities

Fouladvand, J. (TU Delft Energy & Industry)

Herder, P.M. (promotor)
Ghorbani, A. (copromotor)
Mouter, N. (copromotor)

Delft University of Technology

2022-10-07

This thesis aims to support the design and implementation of energy-secure thermal energy communities (TEC) by investigating their technical, behavioural and institutional settings through a collective action perspective. The thesis shows that energy-secure TEC initiatives are collective energy systems with particular characteristics and surrounding conditions. The thesis demonstrates, by building and using a number of agent-based models, that behavioural and institutional settings are relatively more influential than technical settings for establishing and sustaining the functioning of energy-secure collective thermal energy systems. In particular, a combination of aquifer thermal energy storage with heat pumps positively impacted TEC initiatives' energy security. The most crucial technical requirement for the energy security of TEC initiatives is a connection to a natural gas grid. The thesis recommends that individual households initiate their own (thermal) energy communities, and policy-makers support such initiatives.

Energy security
Energy community
Institutional analysis
Collective action
Agent-based modeling (ABM)
Energy transition
Energy governance
Renewable energy systems
Thermal energy
Thermal energy community
Institutional analysis and development

https://doi.org/10.4233/uuid:fe2d2e0c-8abd-4da1-bd75-c8926831b093

978-94-6366-606-0

Institutional Repository

doctoral thesis

© 2022 J. Fouladvand