Becoming prosumer: Revealing trading preferences and decision-making strategies in peer-to-peer energy communities

Ulf J.J. Hahnel, Mario Herberz, Alejandro Pena-Bello, David Parra and Tobias Brosch

Energy Policy, 2020, vol. 137, issue C

Abstract: Increasing distributed renewable energy generation renders balancing of energy supply and demand more challenging. Peer-to-peer (P2P) exchange of decentrally generated energy is a promising means to optimize renewable energy flows. While previous research has primarily focused on the technological and economic benefits of P2P energy trading, little research has investigated customer preferences in this context so far. It is thus still unclear to what extent private actors such as homeowners are actually willing to participate in P2P energy communities and if so, under which conditions. Here, we address this research gap by analyzing homeowners' trading decisions in simulated P2P electricity trading scenarios. Findings based on a sample of 301 German homeowners show that community electricity prices and state of charge of private energy storages are key determinants of homeowners’ trading behavior. We moreover identified four target groups that systematically differed in their decision-making strategies ranging from price-focused prosumers (38.9%) to classic non-trading consumers (22.6%). Our findings provide promising insights for the design of P2P communities and allow policy makers to more accurately predict risks and benefits associated with P2P projects. Finally, our findings contribute to the development of tailored policy instruments aiming to increase P2P trading in decentralized energy communities.

Keywords: Peer-to-peer; Energy trading; Decentralized energy systems; Energy communities; Microgrids; Decision-making; Energy storage systems (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (52)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421519306858
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:enepol:v:137:y:2020:i:c:s0301421519306858

DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2019.111098

Access Statistics for this article

Energy Policy is currently edited by N. France

More articles in Energy Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().