Prosumer Aggregators in Romania

Abstract

Abstract The European Union has pledged to transform Europe into the first climate neutral continent by 2050, and the first step towards achieving this goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2050, compared to levels recorded in 1990. The two main paths the EU has chosen to follow to ensure its climate neutrality goals are electrification and the increase of the integration of renewable energy technologies. If the 2010 period was characterized by the development and adoption of large-scale production of energy by using renewable sources, the 2020s seem to encompass a decentralization process, meant to bring energy production closer to the final consumer. In Romania, the past three years saw a rapid growth in the overall production of energy through distributed energy sources. Although this development is encouraging for achieving the broader environmental targets of the EU, at a local level there are several disadvantages that are starting to appear, such as issues in the distribution grid and confusion of both consumers and prosumers regarding the economic advantages of producing energy locally. The main goal of the research that has been conducted for a doctoral thesis was to develop a set of recommendations for aggregators regarding prosumers, based on mathematical model and calculations centered around a specific time frame. Research was spread into identifying and analyzing existing renewable technologies, detailing concepts such as decentralization, electrification, demand response and power aggregators, and the study of the main power aggregator business models. For these aspects to be covered, secondary research was used in the form of both academic and industry state-of-the-art papers. The main contributions of the research are the synthesizing of available information on aspects related to decentralized energy systems, and a set of recommendations aimed at aggregators, as a business, and existing and potential future prosumer.