Competitive and new business models for smart energy providers (1/3)• Challenges:

• Energy pricing and market mechanisms are difficult to understand• Energy price buy vs sell difference is difficult to understand• ‘February effect’ in Finland – ‘off grid’ life not possible

• Complexity involved is complicating consumer energy decision making • Technology complexity, business models, investment and operational costs, energy pricing, politics, individual circumstances and motivations, …

• Lack of understanding where is the value from the end user point of view • Technology push instead of market/consumer based approach • Communicating the benefits to markets and consumers

• Existing infrastructure: how will it be used in the future?• There are winners and losers in the energy markets: political decision making is challenging

• Possible solutions:• Understanding the consumer decision-making; e.g. bounded rationality, not just economic factors etc.

• Different types of consumers; commercial, house-holds, public organizations, …• Some shared resources that could be used by consumers;

• E.g energy villages, micro-grids, prosumer communities, virtual power plants (VPP) … How to utilize these and how to balance the grid stability? • Platforms for optimazing energy usage

• Draw experiences from other areas e.g. Smart housing, transportation etc.• New technology compatibility with old technologies

• Lock-in effect in old technology & switching costs• Finding use for existing ingrastructure in the new system

• Co-creation with early market consumers to innovate and develop business models • Lead users, open innovation, co-innovation, crowdsourcing• Government funding & support

Competitive and new business models for smart energy providers (2/3)What can researchers do to help resolving the challenges?• Increase industry understanding pros & cons of different solutions • Ecosystem level (vs. company level) business model and stakeholder value

research• Defining ecosystem, industry players and key aspects• Identify different characteristics of emerging ecosystems• Competition between ecosystems/ platforms in energy?

• Increased understanding of the emerging business models and processes• Research on product and market concepts as basis for business models and

processes• Value system innovation (e.g. IKEA)

Competitive and new business models for smart energy providers (3/3)• How can we collaborate as researchers?• Emerging ecosystem business model and strategic niche management –

theory development• Prosumer / consumer - empirical work