Sharing in Future Electric Energy Systems

This chapter explores the integrated potential of future technological and social innovations enabling sharing in future energy systems. Energy systems around the world are undergoing a transformation toward more distributed, renewable-based configurations where new mechanisms for “sharing” are evolving. Future energy systems are likely to integrate a regionally appropriate mix of electricity generation that is dispatched, stored, and distributed through sophisticated platforms that enable sharing of electricity at multiple scales. Sharing in future energy systems has the potential to radically disrupt relationships governing utilities, energy consumers, and distributed electricity generation at the individual and household levels, at the community and organizational levels, and at the regional, state, national, and even international levels. Innovations may allow formerly passive consumers to become actively engaged in producing and managing electricity which could shift the locus of organizational decision making and control away from traditional utilities. Prosumers who can “share” their electricity may be empowered to change the rules that have governed their relationships with utilities for the past century. We consider a potential “death spiral of utilities’ business model” as new sharing platforms, including community-level energy cooperatives, emerge to replace the conventional approach to managing and distributing energy. This chapter also explores how future energy sharing might connect with the concept of energy democracy.