Self-production and self-consumption: What’s the difference ?

Having a decentralized production plant based on renewable energies (in particular photovoltaic and wind power) makes it possible to produce electricity for the consumer’s own use (industrial or household). In this case, it can be used directly on site or re-injected into the network in exchange for financial compensation. Hence the interest in knowing the self-consumption and self-production rates, however, these two very distinct concepts should not be confused.

Self-consumption refers to consuming the electricity that is produced, therefore directly where it was generated. Thus, the self-consumption rate is therefore the share of electricity consumed on site compared to the total electricity produced.

For its part, the self-generation rate refers to the proportion of electricity produced in relation to total consumption. In other words, the self-production rate makes it possible to measure the part of the electricity consumption covered by the source of production.

The challenge is then to assess the share of self-consumption and the share of self-production, through these two indicators.