Abstract
The new Energy Act in Switzerland came into force in January 2018 with very encouraging provisions for community solar PV systems – clearer financial and legal structures under the ZEV (Zusammenschluss zum Eigenverbrauch). However, there is no ex-ante scientific research as to how this new policy will fare, especially with changing electricity prices and falling solar PV costs. Agent-based modelling is a useful technique to simulate the adoption of new technologies and is used for community solar PV adoption in this work. The agent-based model developed in this research uses energy data generated from a district model of nearly 2000 building blocks in the city of Zürich using the City Energy Analyst (CEA). This approach is used to analyse the dynamic levels of adoption of individual and community solar PV systems when modelling factors such as geographical location of agents, environmental attitudes and peer effects, electricity and solar PV prices as well as legal regulations. A scenario without any such regulation is also modelled for comparison. The current work indicates that adoption levels are exceeded with the large building blocks considered, and the ZEV regulations do incentivize community PV system adoption for greater adoption levels at better system economics.
Highlights
With the planned decommissioning of nuclear plants in Switzerland and its replacement with renewable energy sources, Switzerland’s electricity mix is set to undergo a major transformation in the coming years
We explore two policy scenarios (1) current zum Eigenverbrauch’ (ZEV) regulation (ZEV), and (2) no ZEV regulations – same subsidy and feed-in tariff levels but removing community formation
Adoptions flatline after 2030 as investment subsidies run out. This immediately drives down the Perceived behavioral control (PBC) variable which fails to recover enough by the end of the simulation period, remaining agents do not cross the intention stage of the Agent-based modelling (ABM)
Summary
With the planned decommissioning of nuclear plants in Switzerland and its replacement with renewable energy sources, Switzerland’s electricity mix is set to undergo a major transformation in the coming years. In order to accelerate diffusion, the Energy Act 2018 introduced newer, clearer provisions to further encourage the adoption of individual and community solar PV systems [3]. Community solar systems are owned by and supply electricity to several individuals, who share the costs of installation and operation. These systems tend to be cheaper per unit power than individually owned installations, thanks to exploiting economies of scale.
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