The future of prosumers: beyond individual self-consumption? | Donal Brown (University of Leeds)

An explosion in medium and small electricity prosumers has been observed in the past decade across the EU, mainly driven by generous support measures and PV cost reduction. This era is now coming to an end with the phase-out of net metering schemes and feed-in tariffs. Therefore, new business models ensuring economic sustainability are essential. In this podcast, Nicolò Rossetto (FSR) and Donal Brown (University of Leeds) discuss how electricity prosumers can extract more value from their distributed generation assets. According to Dr Brown, prosumers might do at least three things: 1) increase their self-consumption rate behind the meter (e.g., via a micro-grid) or in front of it when allowed by regulation (e.g., Mieterstrom in Germany); 2) trade energy locally via peer-to-peer platforms or blockchain; 3) aggregate their loads and generation profiles to sell flexibility and other ancillary services. The development of digital technologies is making all these options potentially available, but regulation is not always conducive. When looking at the future of energy prosumers, the specific national context matters a lot. If you want to know more about the PROSEU project and its result, please visit https://proseu.eu/ This podcast was recorded on 18th February 2020 in Florence during the second meeting (https://fsr.eui.eu/event/global-observatory-on-peer-to-peer-community-self-consumption-and-transactive-energy-models/) of the Global Observatory on Peer-to-Peer, Community Self-Consumption and Transactive Energy Models (https://userstcp.org/annex/peer-to-peer-energy-trading/) organised by the Florence School of Regulation (FSR) in cooperation with the University College London (UCL) and the financial support of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the United Kingdom.