Abstract
This chapter explores the main variables that characterize the energy aggregators’ interaction with the electricity business ecosystem in different countries. The energy aggregators are new type of energy service provider, which can increase or moderate the electricity consumption and/or generation of a group of prosumers according to the need of the electricity grid and its respective market. To reach our objective we analyse four energy aggregators in four different European countries: United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, and Portugal. The 6C framework is implemented in order to perform a cross-country analysis of the different European electricity business ecosystems (BE). Using a multiple case study approach, we answer to these research questions: what are the main changes in the electricity BE due to the energy transition? What is the role of the energy aggregators within the electricity BE? What are the main barriers that can hinder changes? The analysis reveals different stages of development of energy aggregation depending mainly on the national context and on the legal and technical barriers.
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Notes
- 1.
The Paris Agreement is an agreement within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. It was signed in 2016, and it concerned new measures on greenhouse-gas-emissions mitigation, adaptation, and finance. For further information: https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement.
- 2.
A prosumer is defined as an agent who consumes and produces a product. In the energy context this can be for example in the most simple version a household with PV-panels on its roof, hence doing both: consumption and production of electricity.
- 3.
With the number of active consumers increasing, the ECEP opened up these two new ways of interaction. For example, a household with PV-panels on its roof can therefore use the generated energy not only for self-consumption, but also to share it in a community with others or to trade it on a peer-to-peer basis. Aggregators can act here as the crucial technology enablers. For more information on the concept of energy communities and peer-to-peer trading, please see: https://fsr.eui.eu/peer-to-peer-trading-and-energy-communities/.
- 4.
That is, small-scale (residential) prosumers being enabled to electricity on a direct, peer to peer, basis. This is usually especially the case for the potential excess of self-generated electricity.
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Acknowledgement
Silvia Blasi acknowledges financial support from Centro per l’Economia e Tecnica dell’Energia “Levi Cases”, University of Padova.
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Barbiero, A., Blasi, S., Schwidtal, J.M. (2021). The Impact of End-User Aggregation on the Electricity Business Ecosystem: Evidence from Europe. In: Sedita, S.R., Blasi, S. (eds) Rethinking Clusters. Sustainable Development Goals Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61923-7_15
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