D3.4 Highlights and results Track 3: New Financing Instruments

Summary:

The role of the active user has gained a fixed place in the energy sector. The European Union emphasized this with Directives that have led to legislation in the member states since 2020: Internal Electricity Market Directive (EU) 2019/944, IEMD; Renewable Energy Directive (EU) 2018/2001, RED II. The active energy user is now an indispensable part of government policies, laws, and investment strategies. One of the primary reasons for this shift is technology; for example, solar panels represent investments accessible to individual active users. These users take on roles traditionally held by companies and governments, thus transforming the energy sector. While the sector is governed by both market forces and government, it now includes a new player that behaves differently than market parties and governmental agencies.

The emergence of the active user and their community is reshaping the energy sector, which in turn affects its economics, law, policy, governance, and finance. Decentralization of production is one of the major consequences, thus making the Positive Energy District (PED) important. The main thesis here is that decentralization makes the energy sector multi-carriersector-vector-benefit: at the level of a PED a range of renewable carriers are produced, converted, stored, shared and traded with both economical and social benefits. This multiplicity of benefits demands blended finance and therefore methodologies and instruments to provide blended finance to PEDS.