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Pluralising the European energy landscape: Collective renewable energy prosumers and the EU's clean energy vision
To fulfil the European Union’s (EU) goal of providing ‘Clean Energy for All Europeans’, a transformative shift from centralised, fossil-fuel based systems to decentralised systems based on renewable energy sources (RES) is envisaged. Keen to lead the clean energy transition while embedding technological innovation and elements of justice and equitability into the envisioned ‘Energy Union’, EU Member States need their citizens on board as active participants. Prosumerism or...
Publication date: 2021
Lanka Horstink, Julia Wittmayer and Kiat Ng
Language: English
Modeling Energy Communities with Collective Photovoltaic Self-Consumption: Synergies between a Small City and a Winery in Portugal
The recently approved regulation on Energy Communities in Europe is paving the way for new collective forms of energy consumption and production, mainly based on photovoltaics. However, energy modeling approaches that can adequately evaluate the impact of these new regulations on energy community configurations are still lacking, particularly with regards to the grid tariffs imposed on collective systems. Thus, the present work models three different energy community configurations sustained on...
Publication date: January 2021
Guilherme Pontes Luz and Rodrigo Amaro e Silva
Language: English
Contributing to sustainable and just energy systems? The mainstreaming of renewable energy prosumerism within and across institutional logics
Highlights •Considers how renewable energy prosumerism contributes to just energy systems. •Unpacks mainstreaming processes across state, market and community logics. •Mainstreaming mechanisms are standardisation, marketisation and socialisation. •Specifies hybrid institutional arrangements, actor roles and power relations. •Discusses distribution of benefits, gaining recognition and delineating access.
Publication date: December 2020
Julia M. Wittmayer, Flor Avelino, Bonno Pel, Inês Campos
Language: English
People in transitions: Energy citizenship, prosumerism and social movements in Europe
Active energy citizens are leading energy transitions, co-producing new cultures, practices and structures of production and consumption. This article aims to understand if prosumerism – the collective participation of prosumers in energy projects with social, economic and environmental benefits to society – can be referred to as a social movement. The article draws on a review of Social Movements Theory and applies thematic analysis to characterize 46 prosumer initiatives in Europe. The...
Publication date: November 2020
InêsCampos and Esther Marín-González
Language: English
Beyond instrumentalism: Broadening the understanding of social innovation in socio-technical energy systems
Social innovation is an important dimension of current transformations in energy systems. It can refer to alternative business models, novel policy instruments, financing schemes, participatory governance approaches to energy questions, or new discourses. Its significance for energy systems is often considered in narrow instrumentalist terms, reducing it to a tool serving particular policy objectives. Grounding the concept in social science and humanities insights, this review essay proposes a...
Publication date: July 2020
Wittmayer, J.M., de Geus, T., Pel, B. et al
Language: English
Transformative innovation and translocal diffusion
This paper develops a conceptual understanding of transformative innovations as shared activities, ideas and objects across locally rooted sustainability initiatives that explore and develop alternatives to incumbent and (perceived) unsustainable regimes that they seek to challenge, alter or replace. We synthesize empirical work from two European research projects (TRANSIT and ARTS), in which initiatives and networks were empirically studied, to develop a broader conceptual understanding of the...
Publication date: June 2020
DRIFT, Erasmus University Rotterdam
Language: English
Finance and justice in low-carbon energy transitions
Up to $61trillion of power systems investment is needed to fulfil the Paris Agreement. The mobilisation of so much capital is a huge challenge. As such, energy policy is changing to meet the needs of commercial finance. However, very little has been done to question the justice implications of this capital mobilisation, and what alternatives there are to commercially-oriented finance for low carbon energy systems. This paper uses a comparative analysis of two developed economies to explore how...
Publication date: April 2020
Stephen Hall, Katy E. Roelich, Mark E. Davis, Lars Holstenkamp
Language: English
What is prosumerism for? Exploring the normative dimensions of decentralised energy transitions
Energy systems are in transformation towards increasingly renewable, decentralised, demand responsive and smart configurations. This has led to advocacy of the ‘prosumer’ phenomenon: characterised by actors who both consume and produce renewable energy. In parallel a range of prosumer business models are emerging, governed by a range of market, municipal and community actors. Through a series of semi-structured interviews, focus groups and documentary analysis - centred on a case study of...
Publication date: March 2020
Donal Brown, Stephen Hall, Mark E .Davis
Language: English
Regulatory challenges and opportunities for collective renewable energy prosumers in the EU
The transition to a low-carbon future based on renewable energy sources is leading to a new role for citizens, from passive energy consumers to active energy citizens - the so-called renewable energy (RE) prosumers. Recent EU energy policy seeks to mainstream RE prosumers in each Member State. This study carries out a cross-country comparison between the regulatory frameworks of nine countries and regions - Belgium (Flanders region only), Croatia, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain,...
Publication date: March 2020
Lisbon University, Institute for Ecological Economy Research (IOW), University of Leeds, University of Lüneburg
Language: English
Collective Renewable Energy Prosumers and the Promises of the Energy Union: Taking Stock
A key strategy in the European Union’s ambition to establish an ‘Energy Union’ that is not just clean, but also fair, consists of empowering citizens to actively interact with the energy market as self-consumers or prosumers. Although renewable energy sources (RES) prosumerism has been growing for at least a decade, two new EU directives are intended to legitimise and facilitate its expansion. However, little is known about the full range of prosumers against which to measure policy...
Publication date: January 2020
University of Porto, University of Lisbon, DRIFT, Institute for Ecological Economy Research, Leuphana University of Lüneburg, University of Leeds
Language: English
