Policy pathways towards energy prosumer innovation ecosystem – cross-country comparison from Europe
Valta, Jussi (2017)
Valta, Jussi
2017
Tuotantotalous
Talouden ja rakentamisen tiedekunta - Faculty of Business and Built Environment
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Hyväksymispäivämäärä
2017-12-07
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tty-201711152152
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tty-201711152152
Tiivistelmä
Energy field is in transition caused by political interventions and decreasing costs of renewable energy and ICT technologies. A new innovation ecosystem is being created around energy prosumers, new active market players, who produce part of their energy themselves. Electric vehicles, in-home batteries and ICT-driven business models like aggregation add possibilities to participate in the market. The transition from centralised energy system to a distributed one creates opportunities but also challenges for policy makers. Policy interventions are used for different purposes, like environmental targets but also developing economic competitiveness of the country. Policy instruments form policy mixes that steer the innovation ecosystem to a certain direction. The EU regulation creates a framework where countries are specialising in different technologies.
To structure the prosumer-related policy mix and see how they are deployed in practice, research questions of this thesis are: What policies contribute to energy prosumer ecosystem creation from prosumer’s point of view? How European countries differ in adopting these policies?
For answering the research question, a cross-country policy comparison was conducted. Data was gathered from secondary data sources. Countries researched were Finland, France, Germany, Switzerland and Italy. Policies that were included in scope were chosen according to an initial review of relevant papers and evaluation of their comparability. The policies were structured from prosumer’s point of view by using Rogers’ Innovation Adoption Model. It was based on adoption process of new solar PV system and adding electric vehicle, demand response or battery to the system.
The results of the cross-country comparison show that the case countries have different policy mixes related to energy prosuming. Germany supports microgeneration and batteries but lags behind in smart metering. Italy has a developed market for other areas except aggregation and demand response. Finland has developed good market conditions but does not incentivise any prosumer technologies. France has centralised energy market and lacks smart meters but has established regulation for demand response and incentives for microgeneration and electric vehicles. Switzerland has a dispersed policy landscape as cantons’ role is emphasised. It is a frontrunner in microgeneration and demand response but lags behind in smart metering. From the results, it can be seen that policy mixes could be further developed in each country to attain the potential prosumer innovation ecosystems have.
To structure the prosumer-related policy mix and see how they are deployed in practice, research questions of this thesis are: What policies contribute to energy prosumer ecosystem creation from prosumer’s point of view? How European countries differ in adopting these policies?
For answering the research question, a cross-country policy comparison was conducted. Data was gathered from secondary data sources. Countries researched were Finland, France, Germany, Switzerland and Italy. Policies that were included in scope were chosen according to an initial review of relevant papers and evaluation of their comparability. The policies were structured from prosumer’s point of view by using Rogers’ Innovation Adoption Model. It was based on adoption process of new solar PV system and adding electric vehicle, demand response or battery to the system.
The results of the cross-country comparison show that the case countries have different policy mixes related to energy prosuming. Germany supports microgeneration and batteries but lags behind in smart metering. Italy has a developed market for other areas except aggregation and demand response. Finland has developed good market conditions but does not incentivise any prosumer technologies. France has centralised energy market and lacks smart meters but has established regulation for demand response and incentives for microgeneration and electric vehicles. Switzerland has a dispersed policy landscape as cantons’ role is emphasised. It is a frontrunner in microgeneration and demand response but lags behind in smart metering. From the results, it can be seen that policy mixes could be further developed in each country to attain the potential prosumer innovation ecosystems have.