To charge or not to charge? Using Prospect Theory to model the tradeoffs of electric vehicle users

Electric vehicle (EV) users who aim to become flexibility providers face a tradeoff between staying in control of charging and minimizing their electricity costs. The common practice is to charge immediately after plugging in and use more electricity than necessary. Changing this can increase the EV’s flexibility potential and reduce...

Can behavioral interventions optimize self-consumption? Evidence from a field experiment with prosumers in Germany

Aligning prosumers' electricity consumption to the availability of self-generated electricity decreases CO₂ emissions and costs. Nudges are proposed as one behavioral intervention to orchestrate such changes. At the same time, fragmented findings in the literature make it challenging to identify suitable behavioral interventions...

Self-consumption rises due to energy crises? An evaluation of prosumers' consumption behavior in 2022

Prosumers with photovoltaic systems can reduce their electricity expenses by increasing their consumption of self-generated electricity. This makes them more resilient to price shocks, like the 2022 European energy crisis. We evaluate how prosumers adapt their consumption behavior in response to such political uncertainty and increasing...

Participation of active consumers in the electricity system: Design choices for consumer governance

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,...

The impact of weather and of batteries on the investment risk for backup gas power plants in a largely renewable energy system

With an increasing wind and photovoltaic share, the German generation mix becomes more weather-dependent. Backup technologies can help to bridge scarcity moments. These rare moments with high prices are the main events for their cost recovery. However, the uncertain revenue flow combined with long payback periods leads to high investment...