Economics of Pooling Small Local Electricity Prosumers—Prosumer vs Business as Usual Approach

This paper analyses the economics of pooling small UK based local electricity prosumers with back-up access to the National Grid and compares it to the current conventional UK electricity supply model—business as usual (BAU) approach. This is contextualized against the UK energy market framework, prosumer research and changing energy market dynamics. For the economic assessment a three-tiered production/supply and consumption model is developed based on site specific levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) and other cost parameter to operate the model. Modeling results indicated the economic feasibility and advantage of a prosumer approach in a significant number of modeling scenarios. Additionally, a break-even analysis for the two approaches was undertaken to understand the sensitivity of individual input parameters.