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Collective self-consumption: a regulatory affair?

After having explored this question about individual self-consumption a few weeks ago, it seems interesting to pay a special interest to the case of collective self-consumption. Although collective self-consumption and consumers’ communities respond to a [...]
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Will short channels win the world of energy?

We have seen short channels grow strongly in recent years in the distribution of food products. They seem to respond to a background trend that manifests itself in various ways: – Some consumers become more [...]
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Actors to follow: Eneco

The Dutch energy ecosystem is particularly innovative: it is not surprising for the local players to be of particular interest to all energy companies for their pioneering and innovative nature. Among them, the ENECO group. [...]
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Why local authorities have difficulties to play a significant role in energy?

Local authorities have been at the center of energy developments for a few years. Do they know it? I think so. The local dimension of some energy systems, district heating networks, geothermal energy, use of [...]
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Energy efficiency of industrial processes: a minefield rarely explored

Industrial processes offer a very important source of energy efficiency, all the more important to exploit as these processes are evolving and that a permanent attention is required to maintain a performance of good level. [...]
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Why ESCOs are not so successful in Europe?

The title of this article is already ambiguous considering that ESCOs have only one growth or business model. This is not the case. In their diversity of actions, these companies have been successful in the [...]
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Actors to follow: Shell

Shell is one of the majors of oil directly impacted by the decarbonization of energy. As at Total and BP, its direct competitors, Shell’s strategy anticipate a very strong evolution of its energy mix. Yesterday [...]
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Flexibility (already) in full revolution

Flexibility aggregators appeared some ten years ago to propose the participation of the consumer loads in the systems services and then to sell erasure blocks on the energy markets. Despite some promising developments some of [...]
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Individual self-consumption: a regulatory affair?

How not to speak of individual self-consumption as the subject fills the columns of newspapers and as this mechanism seems obvious in the context of energy transitions? what could be simpler than consuming the electron [...]
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Are big companies still able to innovate?

In order to optimize and standardize their operational performance, large companies have become enthusiasts of processes and procedures; they have codified their mode of operation, going as far as framing the management of innovation, supposed [...]
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Why are energy supplier’s offerings not meeting the hoped-for success?

A first trivial remark makes it possible to answer this question: the suppliers are often from the regulated world and are not used to the marketing process. Customers are not segmented and needs are considered [...]
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Are concentrated markets really innovative?

The question seems incongruous. Why should we ask it? It seems to me more and more necessary to accelerate the energy and / or ecological transition: for that, innovation and changes are necessary. It is [...]
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2019: Summer of all extremes

The summer break is always conducive to taking a step back, necessary to better understand trends, better observe behaviors and positions. This summer was particularly rich in lessons. On the one hand, climate has increased [...]
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In energy matters, a warned strategist is worth 2

In all countries, our energy transitions must respond to an increasing pressure on environmental goals. Some of us still have questions about these targets: are they legitimate, and do they meet a real need? I [...]
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Centralized energy or decentralized energy: opposition or complementarity?

Two worlds of energy seem to mix today: one linked to the centralized energy sources, some will say the old world and the one related to the decentralized energy sources, the same people will say [...]
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Energy Efficiency in Industry: A highly demanding Exercise (Part 2)

Among the energy efficiency actions carried out on industrial processes, those involving the replacement of machinery or machine components, for example motors that consume less energy, are the most natural: their technical dimension corresponds to [...]
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Energy Efficiency in Industry: A highly demanding Exercise (Part 1)

Residential buildings are often singled out as an important source of energy savings: they account for a quarter of Europe’s final energy consumption. Residential consumers, these big Boeotians of energy, are put in the front [...]
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The “forum des 100” : super laboratory to understand the current ecosystems

The “Forum des 100” is an annual forum of expression and exchanges organized in French-speaking Switzerland by Le Temps, the main newspaper of the region. Business leaders, policymakers, academics and journalists work alongside pioneering experts [...]
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The day the electric vehicle will be environmentally friendly …

The most common idea about electric vehicles, especially electric cars, is that they are an answer, if not THE answer, to the need to decarbonize mobility. Most of us consider that driving an electric motor [...]
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Why so many energy suppliers?

The liberalization of the energy markets, decided in Europe 20 years ago, was supposed to help develop competition. This is the case and the movement that has begun is certainly beyond anything we could expect [...]
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Energy efficiency: is it the suicide of energy suppliers?

At first glance, the development of better energy efficiency generates the erosion of the activity of energy companies. Which leads some of them to show that they highly contribute to a better efficiency while doing [...]
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Switzerland: total opening or no full opening of the electricity market?

Once again, I propose to turn the spotlight on Switzerland. The country is undergoing regulatory change. The Swiss market is governed by the LApEl, the electricity supply law, the current version of which dates from [...]
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3 purposes, 3 offer strategies for the Smart Home headache

In the residential market, the Smart Home has been for a long time, the miracle offer that will take off, the technological showcase of manufacturers and energy specialists. But for a long time too, these [...]
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Are we still in need of energy economists?

Sometimes you have to provoke to draw attention to a subject! Now I seem to be tackling an institution established for long in the energy markets! Why is that? For decades, we have paid great [...]
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Episode 4: Energy Transitions Need Societal Changes

Energy transitions are global movements in which many actors have a very different role: the regulators set a frame or promote the evolutions, the citizens alert and are used to initiate many changes, the big [...]