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In Germany, the number of renewable energy prosumers has increased rapidly since 2000. However, the development of prosumers has faced and will continue to face various economic, social, and technological challenges, which have triggered the emergence of a number of innovative business models (BM). This paper enriches the empirical basis for prosumer-oriented BMs by investigating two BM innovations in Germany (P2P electricity trading and aggregation of small-size prosumers) drawing on business model and socio-technical transition theories. A mix of qualitative data collection methods, including document analysis and semi-structured expert interviews, was applied. We found that while both BMs can potentially address the challenges associated with renewable energy prosumer development in Germany, small-scale prosumers’ participation in both BMs has been limited so far. We identified various internal and external drivers and barriers for scaling up these BMs for prosumer development in Germany. Despite these barriers, both aggregation and centralized P2P targeting prosumers may potentially be also taken up by incumbent market actors such as utilities. Decentralized P2P on the other hand still faces significant internal and external barriers for upscaling. Based on the analysis, the paper provides policy recommendations with respect to the identified drivers and barriers. From a theoretical perspective, our findings provide further evidence to challenge the dichotomous understanding of niche actors and incumbents, the latter of which are often theorized to be resistant to radical innovations.
The German-Japanese Energy Transition Council (GJETC) was established in 2016 by experts from research institutions, energy policy think tanks, and practitioners in Germany and Japan.
The objectives and main activities of the Council and the supporting secretariats are to identify and analyze current and future issues regarding policy frameworks, markets, infrastructure, and technological developments in the energy transition, and to hold Council meetings to exchange ideas and propose better policies and strategies. In its second project phase (2018-2020), the GJETC had six members from academia on the Japanese side, and eight members on the German side, with one Co-Chair from each country.
From October 2018 to March 2020, the GJETC worked on and debated six topics:
1) Digitalization and the energy transition. 2) Hydrogen society. 3) Review of German and Japanese long-term energy scenarios and their evaluation mechanism. 4) Buildings, energy efficiency, heating/cooling. 5) Integration costs of renewable energies. 6) Transport and sector coupling.
The outputs and the recommendations of the second phase of the GJETC are summarized in this report.