Value Stream Mapping of Stakeholder Impacts from Rising Prosumers

The emergence of distributed energy resources offers customers the option to become prosumers and partially self-supply and trade energy with the grid. However, even though this transition appears economically beneficial for customers, its impacts on other stakeholders have not been systematically assessed and quantified, e.g., network operators may lose revenue (compromising the network) or update their tariffs (increasing costs for average consumers). Accordingly, this paper proposes a Value Stream Mapping (VSM) methodology to assess the economic impacts of rising prosumers on key stakeholders (e.g. energy suppliers, distribution and transmission network operators) in the UK energy market. The study's findings demonstrate that, unless the market structure is updated, the emergence of prosumers will result in economic losses for most stakeholders.The emergence of distributed energy resources offers customers the option to become prosumers and partially self-supply and trade energy with the grid. However, even though this transition appears economically beneficial for customers, its impacts on other stakeholders have not been systematically assessed and quantified, e.g., network operators may lose revenue (compromising the network) or update their tariffs (increasing costs for average consumers). Accordingly, this paper proposes a Value Stream Mapping (VSM) methodology to assess the economic impacts of rising prosumers on key stakeholders (e.g. energy suppliers, distribution and transmission network operators) in the UK energy market. The study's findings demonstrate that, unless the market structure is updated, the emergence of prosumers will result in economic losses for most stakeholders.