Abstract for:The best defense is a good offense: Prosumer communities as a business strategy for electric utilities

Self-consumption concepts empower consumers to generate their own electricity and reduce their

dependency on energy supply from the grid, transforming the consumer into a so-called prosumer.

Additional to self-consumption of locally produced electricity within individual households, more

advanced concepts that integrate multiple consumers have been developed. This trend of

decentralization poses a threat to electric utilities, which currently use a business model for

centralized generation, sales and distribution of electricity. This paper contributes to an improved

understanding of the deployment dynamics of “prosumer communities”, based on a case study in

Switzerland. The study uses a system dynamics simulation approach to analyze the various factors

influencing the diffusion of “prosumer communities”. This provides insights into potential business

opportunities for electric utilities in managing this transition challenge.