a. Ownership of the generation
The paradigmatic example of the prosumer concept is the individual household that owns its house and owns capacity that is clearly installed on its property. While such a household is clearly a prosumer, the question as to who can be considered a prosumer when the ownership of the generating capacity is less straightforward.
Many people do not own the house they live in, but instead have a different ownership situation, such as renting a house, renting an apartment, owning an apartment, living in a co-housing space etc.(1) The European consumer organization BEUC gives an excellent overview of the possible prosumer architectures in a tenant con BEUC, ‘Tenants’ access to solar self-generation’ (2017) <http://www.iut.nu/EU/Energy/BEUC_%20IUT_solar_self_consumption_March2017.pdf> accessed 16 November 2017, 6. Excluding these people from the prosumer definition would limit the applicability of the concept, which does not make sense from a teleological point of view. For that reason, these other forms of habitation should also be covered by the prosumer concept.
The development of distributed generation has given rise to new market participants who act as the intermediaries in prosumer transactions. One example is solar service providers, who install, maintain and operate solar panels on the roofs of their clients.(2) Jacobs (n 12) 526. Another example is aggregators who combine distributed generation capacity into a virtual power plant or a demand response block.(3) European Parliament, Competition policy and an internal energy market (European Union Publications Office 2017), 68. In these cases, the user transfers most of the responsibility for managing its electrical assets to a third party.(4) Jacobs (n 12) 526. Nevertheless, the user can still be considered a prosumer, as he still takes an initial decision to engage with the electricity markets, even if it is through contracting with a third party to manage the assets. Conversely, the aggregator cannot be considered a prosumer, since he is not the legal owner of the generating capacity. This situation should not be confused with the situation where a prosumer acts as an aggregator of his own capacity.(5) Ruben Verhaegen and Carlos Dierckxsens, ‘Existing business models for renewable energy aggregators’ (BestRES studies 2016), 24. Such a case will most often occur in the case of large-scale prosumers with diverse capacity. Since the user retains full ownership and control over the capacity, he will be a prosumer. The fact that he also takes on the role of aggregator does not change this qualification.
Issues of ownership can also arise in energy cooperatives. If the energy cooperative owns a windmill that supplies the neighbourhood, can the individual cooperants be considered prosumers? The answer is yes: even though the ownership of the windmill cannot be physically allocated to an individual cooperant (since the individual only owns a virtual share in the windmill), he will still be considered a prosumer.(6) Janusz Pietkiewicz, ‘Prosumer energy and prosumer power cooperatives: opportunities and challenges in the EU countries’ (European Economic and Social Committee 2016), 10.