Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

The use of renewable energy resources is rapidly growing around the world. However, several barriers may hinder the diffusion of distributed energy solutions. This paper aims to identify the main inhibiting factors using a literature review methodology. To overcome these barriers and adapt to changing environmental conditions, companies operating in the distributed energy market need to develop innovative business model solutions. We therefore investigated the evolution of photovoltaic business models using the Business Model Canvas to determine how the obstacles to distributed energy deployment can be addressed. Finally, we applied the Lean Canvas to show the main differences between the models analysed and describe the benefits of the community-shared model compared with the alternatives, host-owned and third-party-owned solutions.

Evolution of photovoltaic business models: Overcoming the main barriers of distributed energy deployment