6.2) Process Overview

Agents (owners of the houses) develop the idea of installing PV if enough of their neighbours (in a certain sensing radius) have PV installed, or in a small percentage they will come up with the idea on their own. Once they developed the idea of installing a PV, agents calculate the PV investment and decide. The calculation is made based on the agents cost estimation of “his” PV installation, considering subsidies, investment costs, interest rates, feed-in tariffs, and the expected electricity price increase. PV is installed if the generation costs per kWh of electricity (depending on PV output, costs, subsidies per m2, and interest rate) are lower than the avoided costs (grid costs expected to increase) plus the feed-in tariff (subsidies per kWh expected).