A prosumer is a participant in the energy system who both produces and consumes energy.
Renewable energy technologies are changing the way of producing and using energy. The share of distributed energy sources is increasing rapidly, forcing all stakeholders to rethink the approach to grid planning and power system operation.
In the world, there is an obvious trend of rising retail electricity prices and falling technological costs. Distributed production is becoming more and more attractive from the perspective of electricity consumers. Consumers can now generate part of the electricity for their own needs instead of buying it from suppliers.
From a systems perspective, self-consumption is an additional tool to achieve renewable energy targets that can also help reduce grid losses and peak loads, increase energy efficiency, improve demand response and contribute to reducing CO2 emissions.
The significant drop in the cost of small-scale renewable energy technologies creates new opportunities for electricity consumers to help shape the energy transition. Policymakers are expected to proactively anticipate and accommodate the emergence of this self-consumption model while promoting energy security, efficiency and decarbonisation.
