IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v12y2020i2p692-d310082.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Platforms in Power: Householder Perspectives on the Social, Environmental and Economic Challenges of Energy Platforms

Author

Listed:
  • Robin Smale

    (Environmental Policy Group, Wageningen University, Leeuwenborch, Hollandseweg 1, 6706 KN Wageningen, The Netherlands)

  • Sanneke Kloppenburg

    (Environmental Policy Group, Wageningen University, Leeuwenborch, Hollandseweg 1, 6706 KN Wageningen, The Netherlands)

Abstract

New business models and digital infrastructures, in the form of ‘energy platforms’, are emerging as part of a transition towards decarbonised, decentralised, and digitised energy systems. These energy platforms offer new ways for householders to trade or exchange energy with other households or with energy system actors, but also bring along challenges. This paper examines how householders engage with potential environmental, social, and economic opportunities and risks of energy platforms. We convened two serious-game style workshops in which Dutch frontrunner householders assumed the role of platform members and were challenged to deliberate about different scenarios and issues. The workshop results, while explorative in nature, are indicative of a willingness to pursue energy system integration rather than autarky or grid defection. The idea of energy platforms as vehicles for energy justice appealed less to the householders, although the participants were moderately interested in sharing surplus renewable energy. Finally, environmental motivations were of key importance in householders’ evaluation of different platform types. This shows that in the role of energy platform members, householders can engage with both the community and the grid in new and different ways, leading to a diversity of possible outcomes for householder engagement.

Suggested Citation

  • Robin Smale & Sanneke Kloppenburg, 2020. "Platforms in Power: Householder Perspectives on the Social, Environmental and Economic Challenges of Energy Platforms," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-16, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:2:p:692-:d:310082
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/2/692/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/2/692/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ecker, Franz & Spada, Hans & Hahnel, Ulf J.J., 2018. "Independence without control: Autarky outperforms autonomy benefits in the adoption of private energy storage systems," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 214-228.
    2. Binod Prasad Koirala & José Pablo Chaves Ávila & Tomás Gómez & Rudi A. Hakvoort & Paulien M. Herder, 2016. "Local Alternative for Energy Supply: Performance Assessment of Integrated Community Energy Systems," Energies, MDPI, vol. 9(12), pages 1-24, November.
    3. Yael Parag & Benjamin K. Sovacool, 2016. "Electricity market design for the prosumer era," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 1(4), pages 1-6, April.
    4. Dóci, Gabriella & Vasileiadou, Eleftheria, 2015. "“Let׳s do it ourselves” Individual motivations for investing in renewables at community level," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 41-50.
    5. Thomas Morstyn & Niall Farrell & Sarah J. Darby & Malcolm D. McCulloch, 2018. "Using peer-to-peer energy-trading platforms to incentivize prosumers to form federated power plants," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 3(2), pages 94-101, February.
    6. van der Schoor, Tineke & Scholtens, Bert, 2015. "Power to the people: Local community initiatives and the transition to sustainable energy," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 666-675.
    7. Seyfang, Gill & Park, Jung Jin & Smith, Adrian, 2013. "A thousand flowers blooming? An examination of community energy in the UK," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 977-989.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mehdi Montakhabi & Fairouz Zobiri & Shenja van der Graaf & Geert Deconinck & Domenico Orlando & Pieter Ballon & Mustafa A. Mustafa, 2021. "An Ecosystem View of Peer-to-Peer Electricity Trading: Scenario Building by Business Model Matrix to Identify New Roles," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(15), pages 1-22, July.
    2. Fouad El Gohary & Sofie Nyström & Lizette Reitsma & Cajsa Bartusch, 2021. "Identifying Challenges in Engaging Users to Increase Self-Consumption of Electricity in Microgrids," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(5), pages 1-27, February.
    3. Sophie Adams & Donal Brown & Juan Pablo Cárdenas Álvarez & Ruzanna Chitchyan & Michael J. Fell & Ulf J. J. Hahnel & Kristina Hojckova & Charlotte Johnson & Lurian Klein & Mehdi Montakhabi & Kelvin Say, 2021. "Social and Economic Value in Emerging Decentralized Energy Business Models: A Critical Review," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(23), pages 1-29, November.
    4. Julia Morgan & Casey Canfield, 2021. "Comparing Behavioral Theories to Predict Consumer Interest to Participate in Energy Sharing," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(14), pages 1-17, July.
    5. Hahnel, Ulf J.J. & Fell, Michael J., 2022. "Pricing decisions in peer-to-peer and prosumer-centred electricity markets: Experimental analysis in Germany and the United Kingdom," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    6. Fulvio Biddau & Sonia Brondi & Paolo Francesco Cottone, 2022. "Unpacking the Psychosocial Dimension of Decarbonization between Change and Stability: A Systematic Review in the Social Science Literature," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-28, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Georgarakis, Elena & Bauwens, Thomas & Pronk, Anne-Marie & AlSkaif, Tarek, 2021. "Keep it green, simple and socially fair: A choice experiment on prosumers’ preferences for peer-to-peer electricity trading in the Netherlands," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    2. Hackbarth, André & Löbbe, Sabine, 2020. "Attitudes, preferences, and intentions of German households concerning participation in peer-to-peer electricity trading," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    3. Klein, Sharon J.W. & Coffey, Stephanie, 2016. "Building a sustainable energy future, one community at a time," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 867-880.
    4. Maarten Wolsink, 2020. "Framing in Renewable Energy Policies: A Glossary," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-31, June.
    5. Collier, Samuel H.C. & House, Jo I. & Connor, Peter M. & Harris, Richard, 2023. "Distributed local energy: Assessing the determinants of domestic-scale solar photovoltaic uptake at the local level across England and Wales," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    6. Haji Bashi, Mazaher & De Tommasi, Luciano & Le Cam, Andreea & Relaño, Lorena Sánchez & Lyons, Padraig & Mundó, Joana & Pandelieva-Dimova, Ivanka & Schapp, Henrik & Loth-Babut, Karolina & Egger, Christ, 2023. "A review and mapping exercise of energy community regulatory challenges in European member states based on a survey of collective energy actors," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    7. Dalia Streimikiene & Tomas Baležentis & Artiom Volkov & Mangirdas Morkūnas & Agnė Žičkienė & Justas Streimikis, 2021. "Barriers and Drivers of Renewable Energy Penetration in Rural Areas," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(20), pages 1-28, October.
    8. Donné Wagemans & Christian Scholl & Véronique Vasseur, 2019. "Facilitating the Energy Transition—The Governance Role of Local Renewable Energy Cooperatives," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(21), pages 1-20, November.
    9. Holstenkamp, Lars & Kahla, Franziska, 2016. "What are community energy companies trying to accomplish? An empirical investigation of investment motives in the German case," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 112-122.
    10. Hugo Lucas & Ruth Carbajo & Tomoo Machiba & Evgeny Zhukov & Luisa F. Cabeza, 2021. "Improving Public Attitude towards Renewable Energy," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(15), pages 1-16, July.
    11. Sousa, Tiago & Soares, Tiago & Pinson, Pierre & Moret, Fabio & Baroche, Thomas & Sorin, Etienne, 2019. "Peer-to-peer and community-based markets: A comprehensive review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 367-378.
    12. Sophie Adams & Donal Brown & Juan Pablo Cárdenas Álvarez & Ruzanna Chitchyan & Michael J. Fell & Ulf J. J. Hahnel & Kristina Hojckova & Charlotte Johnson & Lurian Klein & Mehdi Montakhabi & Kelvin Say, 2021. "Social and Economic Value in Emerging Decentralized Energy Business Models: A Critical Review," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(23), pages 1-29, November.
    13. Conradie, Peter D. & De Ruyck, Olivia & Saldien, Jelle & Ponnet, Koen, 2021. "Who wants to join a renewable energy community in Flanders? Applying an extended model of Theory of Planned Behaviour to understand intent to participate," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    14. Ableitner, Liliane & Tiefenbeck, Verena & Meeuw, Arne & Wörner, Anselma & Fleisch, Elgar & Wortmann, Felix, 2020. "User behavior in a real-world peer-to-peer electricity market," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 270(C).
    15. Hahnel, Ulf J.J. & Herberz, Mario & Pena-Bello, Alejandro & Parra, David & Brosch, Tobias, 2020. "Becoming prosumer: Revealing trading preferences and decision-making strategies in peer-to-peer energy communities," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    16. Vernay, Anne-Lorène & Sebi, Carine, 2020. "Energy communities and their ecosystems: A comparison of France and the Netherlands," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    17. Binod Prasad Koirala & Ellen van Oost & Henny van der Windt, 2020. "Innovation Dynamics of Socio-Technical Alignment in Community Energy Storage: The Cases of DrTen and Ecovat," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-22, June.
    18. Brown, Donal & Hall, Stephen & Davis, Mark E., 2019. "Prosumers in the post subsidy era: an exploration of new prosumer business models in the UK," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    19. Wolsink, Maarten, 2020. "Distributed energy systems as common goods: Socio-political acceptance of renewables in intelligent microgrids," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    20. Zhou, Yuekuan & Lund, Peter D., 2023. "Peer-to-peer energy sharing and trading of renewable energy in smart communities ─ trading pricing models, decision-making and agent-based collaboration," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 207(C), pages 177-193.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:2:p:692-:d:310082. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.