Prosumage of solar electricity: tariff design, capacity investments, and power system effects

Abstract

We analyze how tariff design incentivizes households to invest in residential photovoltaic and battery systems, and explore selected power sector effects. To this end,we apply an open-source power system model featuring prosumage agents to German 2030 scenarios. Results show that lower feed-in tariffs substantially reduce investments in photovoltaics, yet optimal battery sizing and self-generation are relatively robust. With increasing fixed parts of retail tariffs, optimal battery capacities and self-generation are smaller, and households contribute more to non-energy power sector costs. When choosing tariff designs, policy makers should not aim to (dis-)incentivize prosumage as such, but balance effects on renewable capacity expansion and system cost contribution.

Degrees of displacement: The impact of household PV battery prosumage on utility generation and storage

“…Qualitatively similar results have been found for other countries, e.g. for Germany(Gnther et al, 2019).…”

“…The use of energy storage, changes the level of coincidence by making excess PV generation available for later use and increasing the system's sensitivity to the type of economic incentives and differences in household demand. This not only changes the overall residual grid consumption, but also the effectiveness of existing FiT policies to guide PV battery adoption (Gnther et al, 2019;Say et al, 2019).…”

“…Compare, for example, the German setting modelled byGnther et al (2019), where household PV installations are always at a 10 kW P threshold whenever the FiT is sufficiently…”

DIETERpy: a Python framework for The Dispatch and Investment Evaluation Tool with Endogenous Renewables

“…Reduced model versions are used for more general reflections of the economics of electrical storage [5] and its changing role in settings with increasing renewable penetration [6]. Three papers on solar prosumage focus on power sector effects for Germany [7] and Western Australia [8], and on how tariff design impacts PV-battery investments [9]. Further model applications analyze the power sector impacts of electric vehicles [10], flexible electric heating [11], and green hydrogen [4].…”