PVP4Grid has been successfully completed. During its first stage, project activities were dedicated to the research and the quantitative analysis of the PV prosumer market potential, with focus on homeowners, landlords, housing cooperatives, commerce, retail, services, and with second priority on industry and real estate companies. The performed activities and results of this stage include:
• Identification of the PV prosumer potential and its impacts on different system environments: An assessment on the market potential identified the most appropriate application segments for such an increase in urban and rural areas as well as its impacts on typical grid environments. The analysis included an assessment of free grid capacity for absorbing prosumer PV in urban areas. See results in “Existing and future PV Prosumer concepts”.
• Identification of barriers for and improvement of the role of PV prosumers: the PVP4Grid project analyzed existing national and European regulatory and market conditions for PV prosumers and developed optimized concepts of PV prosumers for grid connection and in electricity markets. The conditions were considered from a prosumer, from a grid operator and from a policy maker perspective. The latter is related to the load balancing and financing of the grids in systems with high PV penetration. See results in “Report on PVPV4Grid concepts”.
In the second part, the project activities focused on the development of practical guidelines for prosumers, reports focused on the socio-economic benefits and green house emission potential of prosumers, papers for grid actors and policy makers that describe the impact of the PV Prosumer concepts on the grid, as well as on the development of policy recommendations. These results include:
• Validation of innovative business and management concepts (PVP4Grid concepts) for PV prosumers: the testing of new innovative PVP4Grid concepts in real-life environments (using data from already available self-consumption systems) led to an extensive network of demonstration projects that contribute to European energy market research and development. See: “Improved PV-Prosumer Concepts”, “Comparison of the greenhouse gas emission reduction potential of energy communities” & “Report on socio-economic impacts of PV prosumer concepts”.
• Replicability and recommendations: special attention was given to possibilities of up-scaling and replicating the innovative PV solutions and to their transferability across the European Union. The project results resulted in tailor-made recommendations. See results in national “Policy advisory papers”.
• Dissemination and guidelines: by deriving best-practice criteria under different constraints and by elaborating tailor-made guidelines for the relevant target groups and its key actors across Europe, the project empowered many electricity consumers, while ensuring a fair and sound financing of distribution and transmission grids. See results in “Prosumer guidelines”; “Impact of PV Prosumer concepts on grid system” & “PVP calculator”.
