DH-140 Energy community information maintenance
Energy community information stored in Datahub is outlined in the diagram below.
On December 22, 2020, the Finnish Government approved an amendment to the Government Decree on the settlement and measurement of electricity supplies. Provisions on the local energy community and the group of active customers and their tasks were added to the regulation. Since this regulation that has entered into force, Datahub has been handling processes related to local energy communities and groups of active customers from the beginning of 2023. Both energy communities and groups of active customers are maintained in Datahub using the same energy community processes, and the calculations based on the data reported to Datahub are carried out as energy community calculations. Energy community information in Datahub can be maintained by the DSO in whose metering grid area the energy community exists.
According to the regulation, the energy community is notified to the DSO 14 days before the start of the energy community. The DSO must report the data to Datahub no later than 7 days before the start of the calculations and at the most 90 days in the future.
The energy community is identified in Datahub by the party’s own identification. The identification is formed as the party’s own identification for the customers (the DSO’s GLN identification + the identifier given by the DSO). The community identification must be unique. In addition to the identification, the DSO informs Datahub of the name of the energy community.
In addition to the identification and name, the DSO reports the identifications of the accounting points belonging to the community and the percentages of how much of the produced energy by the energy community is deducted from the consumption of the accounting points. The percentages of the accounting points belonging to the community must be 100% in total, and the percentage of an individual accounting point cannot be 100%. Percentages may be reported by two decimals. An accounting point can only belong to one community at a time. All accounting points in the energy community must belong to the same metering grid area of the reporting DSO. According to the decree, the accounting points must all use the same connection. Datahub does not have this information about the connection, so the DSO is responsible for the accuracy of this information. An accounting point with a status of ‘Removed’ or ‘Removed from use’ cannot be added to an energy community.
The local energy community or group of active customers decides whether surplus energy is allocated to each accounting point within the energy community based on its share (surplus method SMB) or to the accounting point defined as the surplus accounting point for the whole energy community (surplus method SMA). This information is provided when the community is created.
If the allocation of the surplus is made on an accounting-point basis (SMB), a small-scale production accounting point, to which the surplus is allocated, must be connected to each consumption accounting point. If a consumption accounting point is not associated with a (real) production accounting point, the DSO must create a so-called virtual accounting point. The DSO must create this virtual small-scale production accounting point before setting up the community. These virtual small-scale production accounting points must have the same kind of agreements as a normal small-scale production accounting points. In the SMB allocation method, the energy community must also be assigned a separate surplus production accounting point, to which the surplus will be allocated for any disconnected accounting points.
If the surplus is allocated to only one production accounting point in the community (SMA), that accounting point must be reported as the surplus accounting point for the energy community.
A notification of a new energy community must also be made if the surplus method changes (the surplus method cannot be changed through an update event). In this case, the community with the old surplus method is ended and the new one is reported with the new surplus method. The timelines for notifying a new community must be taken into account.
Information of the accounting points belonging to the community can be changed using the update event. In the update, the percentages of the member accounting points need to be a total of 100%, and the percentage of an individual accounting point cannot be 100%. The DSO must report this update to energy community information to Datahub no later than 7 days before the start of the change and at the most 90 days in the future.
When the energy community terminates its activities, the DSO must also report this to Datahub. The same timelines apply to terminations as for creating an energy community, i.e., the termination must be notified at least 7 days before the end of the community. The termination event removes the energy community information from the member accounting points at the given date.
Datahub notifies the current supplier and potential current third party of the accounting point information update when the accounting point is either added as a new member of an energy community or removed from the community due to an update or termination of the community. The notification includes the identification and the name of the energy community (empty when the accounting point is removed from the community).
Energy community information maintenance events