Increasing the Resilience of the Energy System Through Consumers: Towards Decentralised, Interconnected and Supportive Ecosystems

Louis Fontenelle (de) (1)

1 TREE - Transitions Energétiques et Environnementales

Resilience could be achieved through increased decentralisation of energy systems in which the consumer would have a key role. Indeed, united consumers within energy communities could become the basic cells of energy systems, producing, storing and sharing energy at the local level. Consumers can also provide various flexibility services to the networks to promote their balance and efficiency (service interruptibility, variation of consumption according to peak periods), that meaning increasing resilience. In a future electricity system based on renewable energies, supply is guaranteed by consumers themselves, since new technologies allow them to consume whenever it is most convenient for the rest of the system. Within the traditional paradigm, resilience was in the hands of supply, but in the future paradigm it will be in the hands of demand (demand response). Digital consumers are clearly providing a great service to the whole energy system, maximising energy consumption/generation and system intelligence. All these developments require a rethinking of the traditional value systems and legal norms of energy systems (universal services, continuity of service) in order to adapt them to this rise of energy consumers.

Mots clés: Energy Citizenship; Energy Communities; Consumers; Resilience; Crisis

Domaines: Sciences de l'Homme et Société; Droit

Louis Fontenelle (de). Increasing the Resilience of the Energy System Through Consumers: Towards Decentralised, Interconnected and Supportive Ecosystems. Oxford University Press. Resilience in Energy, Infrastructure, and Natural Resources Law, , 2022, 9780192864574. ⟨10.1093/oso/9780192864574.003.0021⟩. ⟨hal-03850639⟩