# Users Empowered in Smart Grid Development? Assumptions and Up-To-Date Knowledge
## 3 Results
### Co-Provision  
Where smart grids projects involve renewable energy, users are often regarded as co-providers. Instead of the passive consumer receiving energy, he/she is also producing and supplying energy. Such co-provision is regarded as an active role of users because their conduct \"influences the grid and community, by reducing risks of load and voltage problems enabling more households to use PV\" [21] (p. 17). Such perceptions of co-provision are merely technical; just the possession of renewable energy makes residents a provider. They are connected to the preoccupation with the flexibility dimension of smart grids. The related literature has been discussed above in the section \"demand shifting\".  
A more radical perception is that of active, responsible citizens in the renewable energy transition process, where the relationships between the energy sector and users change drastically if users indeed take and get the responsibilities and power of being an energy provider. Transition advocates as well as several social scientists regard local energy initiatives (LEIs) to have the potential to transform the energy sector from fossil-fuel-based to renewable-energy-based by changing the relationships between citizens and institutional stakeholders. The related literature about LEIs forms a niche in the social scientific literature; smart grids are only touched upon as an issue. This may well mirror the priorities of the cooperatives.  
A radical form of LEIs is the independent, local electricity systems. In microgrids or virtual power plants, prosumers may use, produce, and trade electricity without the interference of a central authority. The Brooklyn Microgrid is an example of an experiment in which energy is traded between prosumers and consumers. The grid operator has access to consumer data and manages energy use, loads, and demand response at negotiated rates. Quantitatively, the energy cooperatives do not yet contribute substantially. In the Netherlands, for instance, just 2% of the solar power installed was collectively owned in 2017 [23]. In this country, two cooperative energy suppliers organize 107 local energy initiatives, aiming to close the energy cycle. A study by [PERSON] and [PERSON] [24] illustrated that local energy associations often combine localized with centralized features, which is why the authors concluded that (p. 1) \"local electricity initiatives can be considered a seedbed of innovation but with no potential to develop dominance in the electricity supply\". Instead, the authors expected that the local initiatives will develop as niches inside the dominant electricity system, challenging its centrality and ever-increasing scale, and will add to the hybridization of its products and services. A dissimilar conclusion was drawn by [PERSON] [25]. He studied the role of two LEIs in what he called the \"remunicipalization\" of Berlin's electricity grid and concluded that the (potential) impact of local initiatives on energy systems and their governance has been underestimated.  
Unfortunately, there are few documented experiences with a truly active role of users as co-providers, probably due to demotivating policy. The findings are ambiguous regarding the potential of LEIs to change the energy system. Experiences in citizen-led initiatives may well provide very important insights on co-provision in addition to the industry- and government-led pilot projects that outnumber them.