Lessons in Community Owned PV from Swedish Multi-Family Housing Cooperatives
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Date
2015
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Hamburg
Abstract
With increasing population shifts to urban areas and demands for post-war energy efficient renovationsacross Europe, solar photovoltaic (PV) deployment in multi-family housing will play an increasingly important roletowards meeting renewable energy, climate, and sustainability goals. This paper describes the stories of threeSwedish residential cooperatives who have installed large-scale PV systems across multiple buildings on their estates.In all cases, reduced operating costs were the original primary motivator; however unforeseen cost increases, changesin policy, and excess supply in the electricity market have made economic success less likely than originallyexpected. Regardless, the owners consider their projects a success due in part to short term social and long-termenvironmental benefits, which were originally less important and difficult to quantify. We can conclude thatcommunity owned PV offers more than just economic benefits, and Sweden’s unique ownership and managementstructure of residential cooperatives can offer insights towards increased deployment in other nations in Europe.
Description
Keywords
PV system, economic analysis, sociological, case study
Citation
Sommerfeldt, N., & Muyingo, H. (2015). Lessons in community owned PV from Swedish multi-family housing cooperatives. In 31st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition, Hamburg, September 14-18, 2015 (pp. 2745-2750).