Collective Self-Consumption
What is collective self-consumption?
Collective self-consumption, just like "individual" self-consumption, allows people to become consumers and/or producers of their own electricity.
The concept of a community serves here as one of the fundamental principles of the approach: sharing the electricity generated by one or more producers among multiple consumers.
The objectives of the ACC (Collective Self-Consumption) are varied:
- Reduce your electricity bills by generating your own electricity and/or using locally generated electricity
- Generating and consuming locally produced electricity, within a short distance from home (within a radius of up to 2 km, or 20 km with a special exemption)
- Enjoy a kWh rate that is generally more competitive than the price of electricity sold on the market by a traditional provider.
- Protect yourself from rising market prices by managing your share of self-consumption.
- Choose sustainable electricity generated from renewable energy sources, get involved in a concrete project, and contribute to a thriving local economy.
Who is eligible for Collective Self-Consumption?
Everyone.
Anyone can become a power producer as long as they own a solar power plant.
Anyone can also become a customer.
A producer can also be a consumer, and a consumer can also be a producer.
What are the prerequisites?
- Be located within a geographical area of no more than 2 km around the power plant (20 km in exceptional cases)
- Have a grid connection contract with the same electricity provider.
- Have a Linky meter or a smart meter installed
- Establishment of the PMO (PMO = Organizing Legal Entity): This is the legal entity that brings together producers and consumers. Its legal form is flexible. It draws up contracts and invoices between participants, establishes allocation formulas, and oversees data exchange. It formalizes the partnership and signs the agreement with Enedis regarding the implementation of the ACC.
What exactly is collective self-consumption in practice?
The ACC is designed to cover all or part of the consumer’s needs. In the event that the ACC is insufficient to cover all needs, the consumer retains their supplier contract, which takes over. Billing is adjusted based on the source of the electricity (solar power plant or grid).
Similarly, a producer who generates more electricity than is sold to participating consumers retains their contract with the balancing responsible party of their choice.
The role of the network administrator:
Collect consumption and production data for each participant using load curves
Apply the allocation formula defined by the PMO to determine the share of electricity generated allocated to each consumer
Forward the kWh volumes calculated in this manner to the electricity suppliers so that they can be taken into account and deducted from the bills of the affected consumers.