New research into the PV markets of the four countries that form the so-called Visegrad group have confirmed that solar trosuments are mainly driven by economic interests instead of environmental problems. The scientists came up with the concept of “energy self-defense” to define all those behaviors that encourage homeowners to resort to PV in an attempt to tackle price shocks.
A European research team has investigated how residential prosumers acted in difficult regulatory environments in countries of the so-called Visgrad Group (V4)-the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary and Hungary and has discovered that one of the most important drivers was a kind of self-defender.
To describe this specific set of Bottom-Up Social Actions, the scientists came up with the concept of ‘self-defense of energy’.
“This behavior is aimed at relieving tensions, fears and uncertainties caused by shortcomings in the official energy system and the shortcomings of the Energy Policy of the State,” said the main author of the research, Piotr Zuk, said PV -Magazine. “It might be more prominent soon.”
Zuk explained that, with higher energy prices, public fear of limited access to electricity and heating in the winter months is increasing. “We are probably witnessing different basic initiatives in which people start to take energy affairs in their own hands,” he said. “This could indicate the rise of a bottom-up process of decentralizing the energy system, which disputes both the state’s monopoly on energy policy and the dominant role of large energy companies and suppliers.”
“When social policy starts to collapse and governments are more focused on military expenditures than on strengthening public services, segments of society often look for ways to circumvent these systemic shortcomings,” he added. “In doing so, they meet their own needs and create alternative social frameworks in the process – in this case a form of independent energy -social midfield.”
In the study “Energy self -defense against official policy: Prosumer Motives and Tactics in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia“Published in Energy research and social sciencesZuk and his colleagues explained that “energy-self-defense” originated in Europe after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, followed by rising energy prices, unpredictable energy policy and a significant increase in PV capacity and heat pumps in the four countries considering their work.
However, they also noted that this growth was not powered by new regulatory frameworks and special similarities between prosumers and power companies in the V4 countries. Their set of behavior was previously described as a replica, under different social-historical conditions, of the “Gramsci-style” social social movements that promoted themselves in these countries in these countries to protest against their respective authoritarian communist regimes.
“In Eastern European countries, where a low level of general trust is constantly observed, believes in official energy prize forecasts and energy policy after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine collapsed completely,” the study is. “Paradoxically, the high degree of distrust of the official order and the real and potential negative consequences of the actions taken by official institutions can stimulate social activities of the base.”
A series of interviews with Eastern European prosumers confirmed that by resorting to PV in the past two years, they responded considerably to the price shock produced by the war in Ukraine. However, these independent efforts can not be sufficient to guarantee continuity to the energy transition, because prosumers always need clear regulatory frameworks, such as feed-in rates, net measurement or net invoicing to calculate the investment return.
“In all V4 countries, economic factors were crucial for prosumers who decided to install a PV system,” emphasized the academics and noticed that environmental problems were not of great importance, which confirmed the results of other research on this subject.
As an antidote for weak regulatory circumstances for PV and clean energies, the research group recommends reinforcement The transmission networks and Increasing the level of active citizenship, and explains that, due to these two actions, the lack of trust in the state could easily become a greater confidence in fellow citizens.
“Without this shift there is no room for the development of basic initiatives based on the principles of cooperation and mutual aid, unity in diversity and solidarity-based action outside the official structures of the state and its energy regimes-this capacity is particularly essential in times of ecological, energy and social crises.
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