Legal Framework of Decentralized Energy Business Models in Germany: Challenges and Opportunities for Municipal Utilities

Feasible and profitable business models to better integrate and harness decentrally generated renewable energy are expected to constitute a key element for the energy transition in Germany. Until now, generated electricity of decentralized systems is to the largest extent only used by the property owner directly or fed into the public grid. To make better use of the generated electricity, it is necessary to find business models that provide an opportunity for different market actors, such as municipal utilities and residential prosumers. Due to the importance, yet low-anticipated monetary potential of such solutions, the legislator encourages their implementation by exemption of statutory fees, levies and taxes as well as by offering public remunerations, premiums and compensations in some cases. Capitalizing on these benefits, however, is only feasible under compliance with the legal requirements. In the light of the considerations above, this work states and analyzes the legal and regulatory framework of different business models within the German energy landscape. The major aim is to identify opportunities and challenges for the implementation of the business models self consumption, direct consumption, direct marketing, demand response, community electricity storage and net metering at the municipal level. The findings show that the profitability of various decentralized on-site business models depends primarily on the current statutory cost exemptions and compensations. At the same time, the regulation is characterized by unsystematic specific exemptions which leads to uncertainty regarding long-term planning. Additionally, although not directly privileged by the existing legal framework, municipal utilities are better suited to handle the legal burdens due to their experience and their administrative infrastructure.     

Energieversorgung als Innovationsbranche vor dem Hintergrund der Energiewende: Ein Fragezeichen

The energy transition includes some technical challenges for the economy. A long-term increase in the demand for energy must be met, whereas proven technologies are no longer opportune. This requires a huge amount of research and development. Is the energy industry facing this challenge? To what extent the additional R & D need is reflected in the official statistics?     

AFTER-TAX ECONOMIC REPLACEMENT ANALYSIS

This paper examines after-tax serial replacement analysis under current United States tax law. The law explicitly defines the difference between an asset disposal (retirement) and a like-for-like exchange (replacement). A gain or loss is only realized when an asset is retired while a replacement leads to the transfer of any residual book value balance to the acquired asset. This transferal greatly complicates analysis and leads to non-stationary solutions, even with time invariant costs. We analyze the effect of this movement in book value for assets on replacement decisions. Furthermore, a dynamic programming formulation is presented with a state space defined by asset age and initial book value, as current replacement models cannot correctly capture the after-tax cash flow implications of this balance transfer. The new model is compared to traditional after-tax replacement models which assume that a gain or loss is realized at each asset sale over the horizon. Examples illustrate that this assumption can lead to widely different solutions, especially in the cases where gains or losses from asset sales are large.     

Dynamische Berechnung der Stromgestehungskosten von Energiespeichern für die Energiesystemmodellierung und -einsatzplanung

Due to the transition in energy supply from fossil to renewable energy sources, energy storage systems are getting more and more important for the security of power supply. Therefore also the modeling of those storage systems in energy system modeling needs to be further discussed. This paper focuses on the levelized costs of energy storage. In the beginning, the existing approaches of calculating those costs are analyzed in a literature review. It will be shown that all of the approaches calculate the levelized costs on the basis of the energy storages’ lifetime. For the usage in energy system modeling it is mandatory that the calculation can be done for variable and shorter time periods. Therefore this work’s approach calculates the costs based on the time of operation in any period chosen. Additionally, the model can be used for any type of storage system. After introducing the mathematical model, the levelized costs of energy storage will be calculated to illustrate the models properties and then verified with reference load profiles for five different energy storage types. Following this, particular input parameters are varied and sensitivities are pointed out. Most of the programs for power plant dispatch calculations use linear or mixed integer linear programing algorithms. As the calculation of levelized costs of electricity is non-linear, most programs use fixed values during the whole time of simulation. In this article the integration of the presented approach into a linear optimization program via recursive and shifted calculation is elaborated. Results are presented and discussed.     

Managing Capacity in the High-Tech Industry: A Review of Literature

This article surveys a new generation of analytical tools for capacity planning and management, especially in high-tech industries such as semiconductors, electronics and bio-techs. The objectives of the article are to (1) identify fundamental theory driving current research in capacity management, (2) review emerging models in operations research, game theory, and economics that address strategic, tactical and operational decision models for high-tech capacity management, and (3) take an in-depth look at capacity-optimization models developed in the specific context of semiconductor manufacturing. The goal of this survey is to go beyond typical production-planning and capacity-management literature and to examine research that can potentially broaden capacity-planning research. For instance, we explore the role of option theory and real options in modeling capacity decisions. We not only examine capacity-planning problems from the perspective of a particular firm, but also the interaction of capacity investment among supply chain partners. Not only are these issues increasingly important in the fast-changing high-tech environment, they draw on new tools from different disciplines and pose significant intellectual challenges. We also examine papers that represent the multifaceted nature of high-tech capacity planning, integrating capacity decisions with issues related to contracting, coordination, sourcing, and capacity configurations.     

Development of the conceptual model of energy and utility management in textile processing: A soft systems approach

This paper aims to use soft systems methodology (SSM) to identify management support system opportunities for managing energy and utility usage in textile manufacturing processes. It presents an approach based on SSM to analyze the complex situation of developing an effective energy and utility management support system (EUMSS). This involves the identification of the scope of the system and user requirements, conceptual modeling of complex problem situations, identification of actors and decision processes, and information-needs modeling. The current study pioneers the examination of the application of SSM to the development of a novel EUMSS and contributes to the body of information systems knowledge in the context of EUMSS design. There appears to be limited academic research in the field of energy and utility system development and, in particular, in the area of EUMSS design, and none in the area of the application of SSM to EUMSS design. In addition, the modeling process could be beneficial if EUMSS design ideas could be widely shared and discussed. The identified scope and system requirements can serve as a guideline for designing and developing an effective EUMSS for textile processing.     

Techno-ökonomische Bewertung von Energie-Autarkie für die Energieversorgung von Einfamilienhäusern

Many consumers currently follow the idea of energy self-sufficiency and try to contribute to meet their energy needs in order to become independent and self-sufficient from the central power supply system. In order to achieve load-oriented energy self-sufficiency the provision of energy must cover the full energy demand at any time. Against this background, in this paper the costs and potentials of a load-oriented energy self-sufficiency of single-family homes are analysed. Thereby it is differentiated between electricity-, heat- and energy self-sufficiency. The modelling is carried out with the simulation environment ?Polysun Designer“ which allows a high temporal dynamic simulation of the annual energy demand and supply.The results show that, within the investigated supply variations, the highest levels of energy self-sufficiency can be achieved by an energy supply system completely based on electricity using a combination of PV; heat pump and battery storage. Depending on the building standard, a maximum of 45 (existing buildings) and 71?% (new buildings) of the building’s energy demand can be covered with renewable energy. The economic evaluation however has shown that under present conditions, none of the investigated supply variants can compete with conventional energy supply (public grid connection + gas condensing boiler).     

Accelerating the development of Latin American digital ecosystem and implications for broadband policy

In the past ten years the Latin American and Caribbean region has been advancing in terms of various digitization metrics, such as the deployment of broadband infrastructure, and the adoption of the Internet and social media. However, despite the significant progress in terms of digitization of consumption,¹ the region faces still some important development challenges of its digital economy. This paper attempts to identify what the future challenges are for Latin America and the Caribbean, which raises a number of research and policy questions: (1) How close is consumer digitization in Latin America and the Caribbean to the levels observed in industrialized countries? (2) How should Latin America and the Caribbean address the broadband and Internet demand gap of the non-adopting population? (3) Are current digitization trends homogeneous across countries in the region or do we observe a divergence across countries, indicating some advanced nations approaching industrialized country performance, while others lagging? (4) If infrastructure and consumer adoption of certain digital products and services is evolving at a fast pace, what are the upcoming digitization challenges? (5) If broadband is a critical lever for the development of digitization, what are the policies to be implemented by Latin American and Caribbean governments to maximize investment for deployment of last generation technologies and promote adoption? To answer these questions the authors have developed, with support of CAF Latin American Development Bank, a comprehensive digitization index. This new index is used to assess the development of Latin America and the Caribbean region vis-à-vis industrialized countries. On this basis, an econometric model is developed to measure the economic development impact of digitization. Zeroing in on broadband as a critical lever for the development of the digital economy, a set of infrastructure investment and adoption goals is defined for different countries in the region. Finally, public policies are recommended to achieving the established goals.     

Internet of things technologies,digital servitization and business model innovation in BtoB manufacturing firms

Technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT) are offering new opportunities and posing serious challenges to firms, forcing them to create entirely new business models, migrating from the conventional product-centric approaches to (digitally-based) service-oriented ones. This paper – following a qualitative research method – aims at describing the service-oriented impact of IoT technologies on firms' business models, with a particular focus on opportunities and challenges for BtoB manufacturing firms.Being the impact of IoT technologies on businesses a quite recent research stream, to date scarce attention has been devoted to the topic with specific attention to its impact on service-oriented business models in manufacturing firms. The paper contributes in this research stream in different ways. It proposes a map of digital servitization that helps in understanding firms' strategic transitions caused by technologies, making both theoretical and managerial contributions. Firstly, the research underlines the impact of the firms' sales model as a strategic factor in shaping firms' digital servitization strategies. In addition, three progressive levels of digital servitization complexity are identified, namely product- process- and outcome-oriented, that are based on an increasing use of IOT technologies and have specific challenges and opportunities.     

电力市场营销专业人才培养体系研究

在电力体制改革的过程中,电力市场营销专业的人才培养面临新的挑战,如何培养适应现代企业要求的高素质技能型人才是电力市场营销专业的一项重要工作.立足电力市场营销专业毕业生就业岗位,针对岗位群、岗位能力需求、岗位培训现状展开调研,深入分析了电力营销人才应具备的技能素质要求,结合电力市场营销专业人才培养建设方案的实践情况,就电力市场营销专业如何建立一个长效的培养体系,提出相关建议以供参考.     

ICT-enabled system innovations in public services: Experiences from intelligent transport systems

Public transport is confronted with major challenges such as climate change and congestion. This paper discusses how these major challenges are addressed by means of ICT-enabled system innovations in public services. Recent developments in ICT enable the realisation of novel solutions for public transport that can be subsumed under the headline of intelligent transport systems (ITS). However, while the advances in information and communication technology are very fast, the transformation of transport systems and infrastructures tends to take a long time. In parallel, public sector reforms of the past decade, often characterised by the introduction of New Public Management principles, have changed the organisational and institutional conditions for transport service provision and innovation, with the private sector playing an increasingly prominent role. Public–private innovation networks in services (ServPPINs) have been suggested as a concept to foster the realisation of system innovations.This paper analyses the conditions, determinants and instruments for managing ServPPINs successfully, by comparing four cases of ServPPINs in intelligent transport systems, which all aim at establishing system innovations. The four cases are: ITS Vienna Region, a dynamic intermodal traffic information service; compano, a novel ride-sharing scheme in Austria; SIS, a real-time traffic information services, displays and management system in Oslo; and Flexus, an electronic ticket system for public transportation in Oslo.The paper shows the importance of organisational and institutional conditions of ServPPINs for realising these system innovations, and the crucial role of entrepreneurial individuals, both in public and private sector organisations. It also points to the importance of making clear strategic choices at the right moments in time in the course of the life-cycle of ServPPINs.     

Using S&T foresight to augment organizational tool kits: a Canadian institutional-entrepreneurial experiment

This paper will explore recent Canadian federal experience in developing S&T foresight and creating knowledge sharing networks aimed at creating integrative capacities and convergent domains that involve fusions of several disciplines. More specifically, the paper will report on the experience of the Office of Technology Foresight (OTF) at the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and its federal partners (science based departments and agencies – SBDAs) as they carried out a major S&T Foresight Pilot Project (STFPP) to elaborate prospective R&D opportunities and challenges in preparation for contingencies that may have to be confronted in the 10–20 year time horizon of 2015–2025. STFPP reports are posted at: http://www.techforesight.ca     

New paradigms for the future: keynote perspectives from The R&D Management Conference 2008

The R&D Management Conference 2008 theme of ‘emerging and new approaches to R&D management’ sought to draw out how R&D‐based organizations today are changing the way they manage (in terms of novel approaches, techniques, models and tools) in face of the challenges and opportunities presented in the current environment. Six keynote presentations by executives, representing both the public and private sectors, elaborated on the following subjects reflecting their experiences on the theme: hyperconnectivity and changing R&D tenets, accelerating discoveries in human health via open access public‐private partnerships, role of government in bridging the innovation gap, building sustainability and innovation in a traditional resource sector, R&D management in the aerospace sector, and leveraging diversity to build a culture of innovation. Their presentations highlighted amongst other things – global trends that are affecting how R&D organizations are operating, economic imperatives driving change in business models, working through partnerships within an open innovation environment, and leveraging the diversity presented by an increasingly globalized R&D workforce for success. Within these presentations are also challenges to researchers to generate new thinking to address current and future problems presented by the R&D environment. The keynote perspectives are summarized in this paper.     

Und Aktion! – Konzeptualisierung der Rolle individuellen Akteurshandelns in sozio-technischen Transitionen am Beispiel der regionalen Energiewende im bayerischen Allgäu

The German “Energiewende” is one of the most ambitious societal transition projects in recent times. It causes fundamental political and economic changes in the energy system in Germany and the whole of Europe. These great societal and technological changes of the current energy regime are of particular interest for research on sustainability transitions. In this research strand, however, the role of individual agency for socio-technical transitions is hardly considered. What drives actors who decisively pushed the regional energy transition? Which strategies and types of action do they choose to foster the transition? How do individual strategies and actions depend on the socio-technical system environment and how does the socio-technical system environment react to the individual actions? To analyse these questions, we apply the Human-Environment Systems (HES) Framework (Scholz, 2011) for the first time to socio-technical systems. Based on an exemplary analysis of the regional energy transition in the Allgäu region in Germany, we propose an adaptation of the HES Framework for socio-technical systems. Finally, we reflect on how the adapted HES framework for socio-technical systems can contribute to a better understanding of individual agency in systemic transitions.     

Has Europe missed the endgame of telecommunications policy?

The European Electronic Communications Code (EECC) is a major milestone in the EU's telecommunications policy. But is it such a step forward and are the technical and market developments such that the EECC is the endgame? An endgame would mean that sustainable competition is reached in all telecommunications markets. The current paper argues that the EECC's new policy goal of investment in very high capacity connectivity could actually lead to policies that end in sustainable infrastructure competition. The EECC's policies, however, are not courageous enough to reach this goal. This lack of courage also characterizes the EU's gatekeeper policies on call terminations and net neutrality. In both these areas an endgame with sustainable competition is possible.     

New R&D management paradigms: rethinking research and technology organizations strategies in regions

The R&D management paradigms of research and technology organizations (RTOs) have been discussed in the past. Academics have analysed their strategic challenges in view of the new demands posed by new competitive environments for their SME clients. New innovation models proposed recently have captured the attention of policy makers. The objectives of this paper are to analyse these models in the case of a particular model of RTO: the R&D units in the Basque Country in Spain, launched with the aim of improving R&D and technology transfer efficiency. This paper is based on an empirical study of a group of specialized RTOs (R&D units) and its objective is to analyse a new paradigm of RTO and propose a model to identify the critical elements that influence performance and strategic alignment between R&D performers (RTOs) and their partners (in most cases SMEs).     

Teaching for CAD expertise

CAD (Computer Aided Design) has now become an integral part of Technology Education. The recent introduction of highly sophisticated, low-cost CAD software and CAM hardware capable of running on desktop computers has accelerated this trend. There is now quite widespread introduction of solid modeling CAD software into secondary schools but how much is really known about the processes of learning and teaching CAD, particularly solid modeling? This paper will discuss current practice in CAD teaching and the way this relates to solid modeling. It will discuss the findings of current research with particular emphasis on the difference between command knowledge and strategic knowledge and how this relates to the development of CAD expertise. Command knowledge is referred to as knowledge of the commands (algorithms or tools) and the procedures to use those tools within CAD software while strategic knowledge is concerned with knowledge of the alternate methods by which a specific task may be achieved and the process by which a choice may be made. The results of a recent experimental study into the teaching of CAD expertise will then be outlined and the implications for the teaching and learning process will be discussed.     

Use of partial least squares (PLS) in strategic management research: a review of four recent studies

Advances in causal modeling techniques have made it possible for researchers to simultaneously examine theory and measures. However, researchers must use these new techniques appropriately. In addition to dealing with the methodological concerns associated with more traditional methods of analysis, researchers using causal modeling approaches must understand their underlying assumptions and limitations. Most researchers are well equipped with a basic understanding of LISREL‐type models. In contrast, current familiarity with PLS in the strategic management area is low. The current paper reviews four recent studies in the strategic management area which use PLS. The review notes that the technique has been applied inconsistently, and at times inappropriately, and suggests standards for evaluating future PLS applications. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

New new technologies: the future and the present of work in information and communication technology

This paper outlines a selection of technological and organisational developments in the information and communication technology (ICT) sector and analyses their likely challenges for workers and trade unions around the globe. It addresses the convergence of telecommunications and information technology, the related developments of ubiquitous computing, ‘clouds’ and ‘big data’, and the possibilities of crowdsourcing and relates these technologies to the last decades' patterns of value chain restructuring. The paper is based on desk research of European and international sources, on sector analyses and technology forecasts by, for instance, the European Union and Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development, and some national actors. These prognoses are analysed through the lens of recent research into ICT working environments and ICT value chains, identifying upcoming and ongoing challenges for both workers and unions, and outlining possible research perspectives.     

Monetäre Anreize zur Steuerung der Ladelast von Elektrofahrzeugen – eine modellgestützte Optimierung

Electric mobility is supposed to contribute to climate policy targets by reducing CO₂-emissions in the transportation sector. Increasing penetration rates of electric vehicles (EV) can lead to new challenges in the electricity sector, especially with regard to local distribution networks. Thus the management of charging loads is discussed as a key issue in energy economics. Due to their long parking times, high electricity and power demand, EV seem to be predestined for load management. Monetary incentives as dynamic pricing can be suitable for that: They reflect the current supply situation, pass the information to the consumers and can thus lead to a corresponding charging behaviour. In this article we analyse this interaction between dynamic pricing and charging loads. For this reason we have developed the optimization model DS-Opt+. It models a total number of 4,000 households in two residential areas of a major city with regard to its electricity demand, its mobility behaviour and its equipment of photovoltaic systems. Four different pricing models are tested for their effects on charging behaviour and thus the total load of the residential area. The results illustrate that only fairly high penetration rates of EV lead to remarkably higher electricity demand and require some load management. The tested dynamic pricing models are suitable for influencing charging loads; load-based tariffs are best in achieving a balanced load curve. In our analysis uncontrolled charging strategies are superior regarding a balanced load curve than controlled strategies by time-varying tariffs. Our results lead to several implications relevant for the energy industry and further research.