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art contract affordances for energy communities
Viktor Bukovszki 1, Ábel Magyari 1, Marina Kristina Braun 2, András Reith 1,3
1. Advanced Building and Urban Design Kft., Alkotás út 53., 1123 Budapest, Hungary, info@abud.hu
2. MaC Holding GmbH, Schönmühlweg 26, 92318 Neumarkt i.d.OPf., Germany, marina.braun90@web.de
3. Research Group ‘Well Being Research Incubator’, University of Pécs, 7624 Pécs, Hungary
Energy communities – voluntary collaborations on energy production and management – are promising
social innovations to democratize and decarbonize energy systems and enact their sustainable transition
from the bottom-up. However, their social scalability is limited due to actors collaborating mainly in social
networks, many potential beneficiaries and supporters are not reached or see too high risks, participant
base remains too homogenous to realize full potential, interactions become tedious after a certain size.
This presentation takes a socio-technical perspective to explain the role smart contracts – self-executing
contracts, with a high level of confidentiality – can play to alleviate these barriers. It showcases prototype
functionalities of smart contracts for three use-cases: collaborative renewable energy production, pooled
energy efficiency investment, and flexibilities trading. This is a work-in-progress demonstration to discuss
these functionalities through the lens of affordance theory, to spark debate on how smart contracts,
as technical innovation, can contribute to accelerating energy communities – social innovations – from
niches into regimes in the energy sector.
Keywords: energy community, smart contract, energy transition, affordance, demand response,
renewable energy
Acknowledgement
The authors declare no conflict of interest and the results presented here received no external funding.
HEALTHY AND SUSTAINABLE RENOVATION WITH RENEWABLE MATERIALS
35
Viktor Bukovszki 1, Ábel Magyari 1, Marina Kristina Braun 2, András Reith 1,3
1. Advanced Building and Urban Design Kft., Alkotás út 53., 1123 Budapest, Hungary, info@abud.hu
2. MaC Holding GmbH, Schönmühlweg 26, 92318 Neumarkt i.d.OPf., Germany, marina.braun90@web.de
3. Research Group ‘Well Being Research Incubator’, University of Pécs, 7624 Pécs, Hungary
Energy communities – voluntary collaborations on energy production and management – are promising
social innovations to democratize and decarbonize energy systems and enact their sustainable transition
from the bottom-up. However, their social scalability is limited due to actors collaborating mainly in social
networks, many potential beneficiaries and supporters are not reached or see too high risks, participant
base remains too homogenous to realize full potential, interactions become tedious after a certain size.
This presentation takes a socio-technical perspective to explain the role smart contracts – self-executing
contracts, with a high level of confidentiality – can play to alleviate these barriers. It showcases prototype
functionalities of smart contracts for three use-cases: collaborative renewable energy production, pooled
energy efficiency investment, and flexibilities trading. This is a work-in-progress demonstration to discuss
these functionalities through the lens of affordance theory, to spark debate on how smart contracts,
as technical innovation, can contribute to accelerating energy communities – social innovations – from
niches into regimes in the energy sector.
Keywords: energy community, smart contract, energy transition, affordance, demand response,
renewable energy
Acknowledgement
The authors declare no conflict of interest and the results presented here received no external funding.
HEALTHY AND SUSTAINABLE RENOVATION WITH RENEWABLE MATERIALS
35
