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Zusammenfassung Steuern und Abgaben auf Produkte oder Verbrauch mit gesellschaftlichen Folgekosten (externe Kosten) – sogenannte Pigou- oder Lenkungssteuern – sind ein gesellschaftliches „Win-Win-Instrument“. Sie verbessern die Wohlfahrt und schützen gleichzeitig die Umwelt und das Klima. Dies wird erreicht, indem umweltschädigende Aktivitäten einen Preis bekommen, der möglichst exakt der Höhe des Schadens entspricht. Eine konsequente Bepreisung der externen Kosten nach diesem Prinzip könnte in Deutschland erhebliche zusätzliche Einnahmen erbringen: Basierend auf bisherigen Studien zu externen Kosten wären zusätzliche Einnahmen in der Größenordnung von 348 bis 564 Milliarden Euro pro Jahr (44 bis 71 Prozent der gesamten Steuereinnahmen) möglich. Die Autoren warnen allerdings, dass die Bezifferung der externen Kosten mit erheblichen Unsicherheiten verbunden ist. Damit Lenkungssteuern und -abgaben ihre positiven Lenkungs- und Wohlstandseffekte voll entfalten können, seien zudem institutionelle Reformen notwendig.

Local energy markets are a promising way to involve prosumers in the electricity system and activate demand-side flexibility. In this paper, we develop a modeling framework consisting of an optimization for prosumer home energy management systems embedded in a local energy market simulation. To enable an integrated assessment, the local market is linked to a central spot market. For each prosumer, we consider the individual flexibility potential, home storage systems, and demand response of electric vehicles. Using this model, we analyze the costs and benefits of a local market for prosumers in an energy system with a high share of renewable energy. We compare the systemic effects and the potential economic benefits of this local market for prosumers to pure self-consumption and prosumer participation in a central spot market. Applying our model to a case study of 480 prosumers, we show that a system including a local market is beneficial compared to self-consumption from a systemic perspective. However, allowing prosumers to participate directly in a central spot market is more profitable and facilitates the system integration of renewables.

Energy autonomy, the desire to become independent from a centralised supply system, is a core motivation for the development of decentralised energy systems, even if it does not have tangible economic or ecological benefits. For the case of electricity, we introduce a regional system model which optimises the capacity expansion and operation of photovoltaics and battery storage. We quantify cost-efficient regional degrees of electricity autonomy for 166 regions in Southern Germany and assess how increasing the degree of autonomy beyond the optimal level affects the economic viability of a decentralised electricity system. We find that the average optimal degree of autonomy reached is 44%. Thus, our results show that a substantial increase of photovoltaic capacity is economically beneficial in all the regions examined. However, achieving a predefined degree of autonomy causes additional costs for the region and results in a large overcapacity, while all regions still rely on the superordinate electricity system to some extent.

By combining findings from techno-economic modelling with those from a survey of households, this article pursues an interdisciplinary approach to answer the question to what extent flexibly operated heat pumps (FHP) offer the potential to reduce the surplus generation from renewable energy sources (RES) through demand response (DR). First, we used an optimisation model to evaluate the potentials of two different DR signals to minimise the electricity costs for heat pump operation and surplus generation from RES. Second, we conducted a survey study (n = 985), the design of which was informed by the outcomes of the optimisation model. Third, we combined the findings from the two analyses to estimate market shares and link these back to the expected contribution of FHPs for RES integration. Our main findings include: even if the monetary savings due to DR were passed on fully to FHP adopters, the RES integration by FHPs would be limited due to a lack of FHP adoption. One of the main challenges is that to make FHPs useful for RES integration, an external data exchange is needed. This is, however, unattractive to consumers and thus reduces market shares. In particular, despite external data exchange allowing for higher financial savings (€110/a with data exchange vs. €57/a without), we find that FHPs without data exchange are evaluated as overall more attractive. Thus, policy measures are needed to leverage the RES integration potential of FHPs.