Fraunhofer-Institut für System- und Innovationsforschung ISI

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  • Publication
    Assessing the conditions for economic viability of dynamic electricity retail tariffs for households
    ( 2024)
    Stute, Judith orcid-logo
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    Pelka, Sabine orcid-logo
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    Kühnbach, Matthias orcid-logo
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    Klobasa, Marian orcid-logo
    The success of the energy transition relies on effectively utilizing flexibility in the power system. Dynamic tariffs are a highly discussed and promising innovation for incentivizing the use of residential flexibility. However, their full potential can only be realized if households achieve significant benefits. This paper specifically addresses this topic. We examine the leverage of household flexibility and the financial benefits of using dynamic tariffs, considering household heterogeneity, the costs of home energy management systems and smart meters, the impact of higher electricity prices and price spreads and the differences between types of prosumers. To comprehensively address this topic, we use the EVaTar-building model, a simulation framework that includes embedded optimization designed to simulate household electricity consumption patterns under the influence of a home energy management system or in response to dynamic tariffs. The study's main finding is that households can achieve significant cost savings and increase flexibility utilization by using a home energy management system and dynamic electricity tariffs, provided that electricity prices and price spreads reach higher levels. When comparing price levels in a low and high electricity price scenario, with an increase of the average electricity price by 15.2 €ct/kWh (67% higher than the average for the year 2019) and an increase of the price spread by 8.9 €ct/kWh (494% higher), the percentage of households achieving cost savings increases from 3.9% to 62.5%. Households with both an electric vehicle and a heat pump observed the highest cost benefits. Sufficiently high price incentives or sufficiently low costs for home energy management systems and metering point operation are required to enable households to mitigate rising electricity costs and ensure residential flexibility for the energy system through electric vehicles and heat pumps.
  • Publication
    How do dynamic electricity tariffs and different grid charge designs interact? - Implications for residential consumers and grid reinforcement requirements
    ( 2024)
    Stute, Judith orcid-logo
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    Klobasa, Marian orcid-logo
    Dynamic electricity retail tariffs and different grid charge designs are discussed as key measures to support renewable energy integration. This article investigates the interplay between both, examining their impact on residential consumers regarding their economic savings and choice of retail tariff and on grid reinforcement requirements in low-voltage grids. We use a model-based approach for determining grid reinforcement requirements combined with an optimization model to assess residential consumer behavior towards different combinations of dynamic electricity retail tariffs and grid charge designs. We explore how these options influence the choice of households in Germany to invest in a home energy management system and to opt for a dynamic electricity retail tariff. Our findings show that with a grid charge design with capacity subscription, the share of households utilizing their flexibility and opting for a dynamic electricity retail tariff can be increased up to 74% (vs. 67% for a volumetric grid charge design). Furthermore, grid reinforcement costs can be reduced with a capacity subscription based grid charge design by 37% in rural low-voltage grids compared to the current grid charge design in Germany. This study offers novel perspectives on the interplay of dynamic electricity retail tariffs and grid charge designs, emphasizing the need for integrated policy approaches that allow residential consumers to benefit from reduced electricity costs while limiting grid reinforcement costs for distribution system operators.
  • Publication
    Effects of heat pump scheduling on low-voltage grids using a receding horizon control strategy
    ( 2023)
    Haendel, Michael
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    Hug, Gabriela
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    Klobasa, Marian orcid-logo
    Heat pumps (HPs) are a promising option for decarbonizing the residential heating sector. Their use leads to an increased demand for electricity, which can burden the grid in uncontrolled operation, while controlled HPs can provide additional flexibility to the system. In this paper, the integration of HPs through a receding horizon approach into a power market model is presented to study the behavior of HPs considering electricity market prices and network constraints of a low-voltage grid. In a case study with centralized and self-consumption optimized control strategies, the effects of HPs are analyzed. Furthermore, the authors investigate how the aggregation of several households into energy communities affects the system. The results show that for the considered grid, the additional power demand of HPs is usually uncritical and a strictly cost-minimizing operation is often possible from a grid perspective. Typically, critical grid situations occur only at times of high PV feed-in with low HP flexibility. The formation of energy communities compared to individual households differs primarily in the allocation of cost savings to individual consumers. The difference in the impact of the two control strategies on the grid is negligible in this case.
  • Publication
    Keeping track of cleantech development using innovation clusters and member's website data: Evidence from leading energy clusters in Germany
    ( 2023)
    Singh, Mahendra
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    Darold, Denilton Luiz orcid-logo
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    Klobasa, Marian orcid-logo
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    Zielinski, Andrea orcid-logo
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    Frietsch, Rainer
    The main research question addressed in this work is how energy clusters can be evaluated and what general conclusions can be drawn out of their activities. Traditional innovation cluster analysis approaches chiefly rely on surveys, interviews, open publications, and patents-lack of using updated activities of innovation clusters. Therefore, preceding cluster analysis methodologies always lack of providing up-to-date information. In this sense, analyzing energy cluster activities is an obvious interest for policymakers, investors, companies, etc. Moreover, such assessment help to track the development of new technologies, participation of different actors in an innovation ecosystem, and emerging topics in the energy sector. This work presents the research outcomes on the leading energyinnovation clusters in Germany. To this end, this paper exploits the publicly available website data from the clusters and member’s web-pages to investigate their geographical distribution, key focus areas, cluster, and member activities. In the course of the project, a web-scraping tool has been developed to crawl the clusters and member’s websites and scrape their text data. The tool performs systematic and guided web-scraping for searching a keyword presence on a particular web-page. In addition to this, data from commercially available company databases are used to complement the missing information from the website data. A total of 44 energy clusters along with 4524 members are taken into account in this study. The proposed methodology has shown that unstructured web-data is a valuable source for analyzing the clusters and their member’s innovation activities. Results have also indicated that there is a strong correlation (r = 0.85) between Research and Development (R&D) expenditure and cluster count in individual federal states. The overall results have indicated that the majority of energy clusters are very specialized in certain topics, nevertheless, topics such as hydrogen, carbon, and bioenergy are getting notable attention from various stakeholders. Simultaneously, various cross-sectoral topics are also emerging due to the coupling between different sectors. Findings could help policymakers and federal innovation agencies to understand the ongoing progress in cleantech innovation activities. From the methodological point of the view, it provides an underlying ground to access the impact of cluster policies.
  • Publication
    Servitization of Energy Sector: Emerging Service Business Models and Startup’s Participation
    ( 2022)
    Singh, Mahendra
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    Jiao, Jiao
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    Klobasa, Marian orcid-logo
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    Frietsch, Rainer
    Changing asset ownership models in the energy sector is spurring established companies and startups to implement customer-centric smart services. In this sense, startups are pioneers of innovative business models, and unbundle the energy value chain to provide various services to final customers. Although service business models have received large attention in the energy sector, the role of startups in service business model innovation (S-BMI) is not fully understood in the literature. To put this into perspective, the proposed work analyzes the six most practiced energy service categories, specifically, Comfort and Heating, Flexibility and Trading, Energy Efficiency and Management, Solar and Microgrid, Charging and Battery, and Energy Software Solutions are taken into account, accompanying service business model archetypes in the energy sector. Data from two different company databases are combined, and a list of 432 startups dealing with energy services are analyzed. The operating revenue, stakeholders, investors, and funding are considered as the main indicators to compare the service categories. The top two categories in terms of the number of startups are Solar and Microgrid (38.1%) alongside Energy Efficiency and Management (20.1%). The analysis suggests that X-as-a-service (XaaS) and platform-based business models are becoming the center-of-attention for investors and shareholders. Digital marketplaces are also evolving in the energy sector. In fact, the current study found that startups associated with XaaS, platforms, and marketplace activities are attracting the majority of investors and funding programs. From a theoretical point of view, the study has provided the main motivations and enablers behind the energy sector servitization. The findings could serve as an initial methodological framework to analyze services in the energy sector, putting service business models and startups into focus.
  • Publication
    Participation of active consumers in the electricity system: Design choices for consumer governance
    ( 2022)
    Pelka, Sabine orcid-logo
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    Chappin, Émile J.L.
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    Klobasa, Marian orcid-logo
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    Vries, Laurens J. de
    Household electricity use has an increasing impact on the overall energy system. Numerous proposals have been made to support households to consume electricity in a system-friendlier manner. By breaking these proposals down into functions and how they are performed, this paper identifies four distinctive governance designs: energy communities, variable electricity tariffs, local energy markets and virtual power plants. None covers all the functions required and each addresses different trade-offs that households face. Energy communities focus on investing in energy assets, while the others target the operation of households’ assets, including demand response. Virtual power plants attract profit-oriented consumers, while the others primarily target normative consumers.
  • Publication
    Making energy-transition headway: A data driven assessment of German energy startups
    ( 2021)
    Singh, Mahendra
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    Jiao, Jiao
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    Klobasa, Marian orcid-logo
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    Frietsch, Rainer
    This paper explores the linkage between ongoing clean energy-transition, technology and business model emergence in the German energy sector. The speed of energy-transition is often led by innovative startups. Startups with innovative products, services, or value propositions are a key indicator, supporting successful energy-transition. Though, commercial databases cover comprehensive details to understand startup's financial activity and stakeholder relation, but without considering their innovation and business activity. Measuring the actual activities of energy startups is pivotal to capture the impact of energy-transition. To put this into perspective, a hybrid approach of data collection combining structured and unstructured data has been proposed in the following work. A list of 240 innovative startups belonging to different categories and technology focus are examined. Furthermore, data-driven analysis is performed over the data collected from multiple sources. Renewable technologies are yet the most preferred technology focus among German entrepreneurs and stakeholders. 24.6% startups are identified in this category followed by 17.5% in energy management and 16.2% in energy storage. The evidence from this study suggests a clear shift in technology and the value proposition of successful innovative startups in Germany. Digitalisation of the energy sector is fostering the development of multi-sided digital platform driven business models. The result suggested that 8.0% of startups have implemented purely platform based services while 15.7% are experimenting with platform business models along with traditional business to business (B2B) and business to customer (B2C) business models. Findings could guide policymakers and federal agencies to provide a vision for future technology and business model adaptation in the German energy sector.
  • Publication
    Sector coupling technologies in gas, electricity, and heat networks. Competition or synergy?
    ( 2020)
    Oberle, Stella orcid-logo
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    Stute, Judith orcid-logo
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    Fritz, Markus orcid-logo
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    Klobasa, Marian orcid-logo
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    Wietschel, Martin
    Current investment in distribution networks for electricity, gas, and heat is high, and the distribution networks play a prominent role in the necessary transformation of the energy system. This paper provides insights into the relationship between residential end-user decisions on heat supply and their effect on infrastructure planning. Therefore, the gas, electricity, and heat networks are analyzed together. After a review of the characteristics of the networks, the most common sector coupling technologies are compared economically and environmentally. The results show that, under the assumptions made, heat pumps are the cheapest option for residential end-users in the long run. This raises the question of whether a parallel development of three different infrastructures for the heat supply of buildings is the best path to a successful energy transition.
  • Publication
    Impact of electric vehicles: Will German households pay less for electricity?
    ( 2020)
    Kühnbach, Matthias
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    Stute, Judith orcid-logo
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    Gnann, Till orcid-logo
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    Wietschel, Martin
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    Marwitz, Simon
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    Klobasa, Marian orcid-logo
    High energy efficiencies imply that electric mobility is regarded as an important technological option to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the transport sector. However, electric vehicles (EVs) also have impacts on electricity grids and electricity generation. Hence, this paper explores how private EVs affect residential electricity prices in Germany. We examine effects of EVs on electricity generation, the contribution of controlled charging and impacts on distribution grid grids. We show that in 2030, private EVs can reduce the electricity prices for households since at distribution grid level, the additional electricity demand increases the overall utilisation of the grid and lowers specific costs. Because the additional load of EVs leads to an increased usage of power plants with higher variable costs, there is the opposite effect on electricity generation costs, although limited by controlled charging. Overall, the effect of rising electricity generation costs is usually overcompensated by falling specific grid charges.
  • Publication
    Demand response in the service sector - Theoretical, technical and practical potentials
    ( 2020)
    Wohlfarth, Katharina
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    Klobasa, Marian orcid-logo
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    Gutknecht, Ralph orcid-logo
    Flexible energy demand (demand response, DR) is seen as one solution to integrate intermittent renewable energy sources into future energy systems. We provide a comprehensive analysis of the DR potential of the service sector, using a transparent bottom-up approach, along with quantitative survey data from a large sample size of over 1500 German companies. This allows us to estimate the theoretical and technical potentials and to representatively quantify the willingness of the companies to participate in DR, determining the practical potential. We identified food retail as well as restaurants as most promising subsectors, based on the availability of flexible appliances and control technologies and their willingness to conduct automated DR. Taking cross-cutting flexible appliances in the subsectors offices, trade and hotels/restaurants into account, our estimations result in approximately 22 TWh of theoretical potential (~35% of total electricity consumption of the subsectors), 4 TWh of technical potential and 1 TWh of practical potential. Relevant barriers to DR are its perceived low priority and inadequate financial incentives due to a small share of energy costs within firms, whereas customer image of DR is perceived as an important driver. Knowledge of barriers and drivers is valuable for designing policies, which incorporate the needs of applicants and enable companies to participate in DR. Across European countries, the structure and share of electricity demand of the service sector is fairly comparable (with differences arising from climatic context); hence the insights derived here are in its main conclusions also relevant for the entirety of Europe.