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Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
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 e ectiveness. We carried out a documentary study and an online survey in nine EU countries
to shed light on the demographics, use of technology, organisation, financing, and motivation as well
as perceived hindering and facilitating factors for collective prosumers. We identified several internal
and external obstacles to the successful mainstreaming of RES prosumerism, among them a mismatch
of policies with the needs of di erent RES prosumer types, potential organisational weaknesses as well
as slow progress in essential reforms such as decentralising energy infrastructures. Our baseline results
o er recommendations for the transposition of EU directives into national legislations and suggest
avenues for future research in the fields of social, governance, policy, technology, and business models.
Description
Keywords
Renewable energy prosumer Energy transition Collective prosumer Energy union Community energy
Pedagogical Context
Citation
Horstink, L., Wittmayer, J.M., Ng, K., Luz, G.P., Marín-González, E., Gährs, S., Campos, I., Holstenkamp, L., Oxenaar, S., Brown, D. (2020). Collective Renewable Energy Prosumers and the Promises of the Energy Union: Taking Stock. Energies 13, 421