As concerns about increasing home energy costs continue, ABB expects to see stronger demand from ‘Prosumers’ in 2018 for smarter solutions to manage energy usage.
With 80 percent of consumers now owning at least one smart home device and over a third (36 percent) investing in energy management technology to provide greater control of their energy usage*, the rise of the prosumer highlights one of the most exciting trends in renewable energy, with ABB predicting even greater competition and innovation in the energy sector for 2018.
ABB believes that it is this desire to harness energy and use it only when required that will lead to increasing demand in 2018 for solar inverters with integrated energy storage, control and smart features, like its UNO-DM-PLUS inverter and REACT, that enables consumers to store excess energy for use it when it is most needed.
These ‘prosumers’, who install solar photovoltaic (PV) and energy storage solutions, will look to maximize self-consumption. Research by IHS Markit™ **predicts that the rate of self-consumed power will increase to more than 2.5 percent of total final electricity consumption in Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom by 2020, with more than 25 TWh of electricity being generated and self-consumed on site.
As Massimo Migliorini, Global Business Development manager for ABB Electrification Products division said: “These active energy users, who both consume and produce electricity, are having a dramatic impact on the electricity system. In effect, householders have now become the owners of the energy harnessed by their photovoltaic (PV) system and are deciding when to use it without wasting a Watt.”
