New Report: Designing a one-stop-shop for consumer renewable energy systems
The current energy system is broken. But increasingly affordable home technologies like solar panels, batteries, and efficient electrical devices are creating a cleaner and cheaper alternative for consumers.
Households around the world are using ‘one-stop-shops’ to make this transition easier. One-stop-shops are integrated hubs that provide consumers with advice and support with installation and financing in the energy transition.
Today, at Global Congress 2023, we launch a new report – Designing a One-Stop-Shop for Consumer Renewable Energy Systems – that identifies 113 one-stop-shop solutions globally.
At a glance:
- Last year, households around the world invested $184bn on climate mitigation - nearly twice that of all government spending globally.
- Households are using ‘one-stop-shops’ to make the transition to green energy easier.
- One-stop-shops are integrated hubs that provide consumers with advice and support with installation and financing in the energy transition.
- One-stop-shops that have already been established around the world are committing to better protect and empower consumers.
- Consumers International is calling on leaders to implement more one-stop-shops to help consumers take advantage of renewable energy technologies in their homes.
WHAT ARE CONSUMER RENEWABLE ENERGY SYSTEMS
With consumers around the world facing unprecedented rises in their energy bills, it is time to disrupt the traditional ‘command and control’ model of energy production, which makes us dependent on centralised fossil-fuelled power plants. In its place, we need a new consumer-focused model, which enables ordinary people to become generators, storers, and users of their own renewable energy at home.
This is now possible using common and increasingly affordable technologies such as solar panels, smart meters, batteries, electric vehicles and efficient electric heating and cooling. Empowering households to directly adopt these solutions would reduce their emissions and lower, or even wipe out, their bills. In Europe, switching to smart heat pumps alone will reduce consumers’ heating costs by up to 25% compared with gas. In rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa, installing a simple solar lantern causes consumers’ lighting expenditures to fall by 85%.
Adapted and modified from E3G (2023) Briefing: New Generation Energy System
HOW DO ONE STOP SHOPS WORK?
A one-stop-shop is the latest consumer-focused model driven by digitalisation that would see increasingly affordable technologies – such as solar panels, smart meters, batteries, electric vehicles and efficient electric heating and cooling – become accessible to households.
Consumer International’s latest report reveals how one-stop-shop solutions have changed the energy marketplace and have already enabled consumers to reap the benefits of renewables. One-stop-shops offer support to consumers all along their journey, from initial awareness, to investment, to use. By removing barriers and acting as a convenor between consumers and suppliers, one-stop-shops present one viable solution to achieve the transition to renewable energy ahead of 2050 net-zero targets. All consumer experts from 28 countries that were surveyed agreed that one-stop-shops have the potential to accelerate the clean energy transition in their respective countries.
Adapted from European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Boza-Kiss, B., Bertoldi, P., Della Valle, N. et al. (2021) One-stop shops for residential building energy renovation in the EU : analysis & policy recommendations. Publications Office
Global Case studies
The report uncovers 113 one-stop-shop solutions globally – including in the US, Australia, Kenya, and Colombia – showing how they can support consumers to adopt renewable energy technologies like solar panels, batteries, and efficient electric appliances. The report argues that one-stop-shops can make the consumer journey to renewable technologies more streamlined, more affordable, and more trustworthy.
Examples of one-stop-shops include the UK’s Octopus Energy’s Zero Bills Tariff that offers consumers with solar, storage, and insulation five years of guaranteed zero bills, Barrio Eléctrico in Puerto Rico that provides people with affordable solar panel installations and optimisation and Zuwa Energy in Malawi, providing asset financing for off-grid solar energy and appliances.
Regardless of local policy and solar power potential, one-stop-shops are establishing their value across global markets with unique advantages: ensuring consumer confidence through testing and accreditation, and aggregating customer demand to achieve cost savings on a large scale.
Recommendations
Evidence shows consumers already reaping the benefits of switching to renewable energy via one-stop-shops. However, only a small percentage of the world’s population is taking advantage of renewable energy systems due to technological, infrastructural, financial, regulatory, and knowledge-related barriers.
To address this, Consumers International is calling on policy leaders to:
- Conduct a review to understand consumer needs and market readiness for household renewable energy technologies, feeding into an overall strategy to empower consumers through the energy transition.
- Establish or directly fund public or NGO-run one-stop-shops that deliver the greatest value to consumers and that private actors are unlikely or unable to provide.
- Indirectly support commercial one-stop-shop services by promoting them and providing open-source software tools that can improve the consumer experience.
- Design technology subsidy and electricity pricing regimes in a way that incentivises one-stop-shops and their consumers to offer and adopt integrated household renewable systems.
The report also provides a framework and set of best practices for existing one-stop-shops to consider how they can strengthen their services, including how to uphold consumer protections around interoperability, data security and privacy, and redress.
A growing global movement
Consumers International is building a global group of ambitious one-stop-shops committed to sharing best practices and continually innovating with and for consumers.
How one-stop-shops around the world have committed to improving the consumer experience
Join us
To advance the innovation, insight, and cross-cutting collaborations we need, Consumers International will continue to support the consumer journey in the energy transition including exploring effective business models and policy recommendations.
Contact impact@consint.org to learn more about our clean energy futures roadmap in 2024 and beyond.