Distributed energy business has the character that there are many actors which all have
their own goals [ҟ19]. These actors can include customers, on whose premises DG or DR
equipment are installed, the energy supplier, the company who installs and controls the
operation of DG and DR (if this is different from energy supplier), distribution network
operator, transmission system operator, gas network operator, government and the
whole society. Moreover, the interactions between different parties are not simple value
chains but value constellations in which enterprises are collaborating in networks. The
introduction of changes into this system can have a negative or positive effect on the
well-being of different actors. Negative effects to some actor can jeopardize or delay the
follow-through of the changes.
Example of such negative effect can be found in smart metering. They may not be
profitable to the DSO (who installs them) only. However, they can include extended
services such as load control and can thus be exploited by demand response
aggregators. A suitable price for the metering and control services should then be found
so that DSO as monopoly can make normal profit. In principle, if the business can bring
net benefits to the whole society, it is possible to find income transfers which would
make all parties better off. These can take the form of payments between companies or
between taxpayers and companies, such as subsidies.
There are tools for understanding the transactions between different actors in networked
economy especially in the case of DG and DR. One such tool is the "Busmod" (business
modeling) or "e3
-value" methodology [ҟ20, ҟ21]. It graphically shows the financial
connections between different actors and can also calculate profits for all relevant actors
in simple cases. It does not, however, calculate the complicated decisions needed in e.g.
operating DG units; prices and quantities for transactions can only be calculated in a
simple way. By explicitly modeling a DER business case using a shared and welldefined
terminology, it is also a good tool for helping to increase understanding between
different parties. This tool has been better introduced in Annex 2: Busmod methodology