The objective of this study was to explore how the technology and the business of distrib-uted energy generation industry will change in the future, and what opportunities it could offer to Finnish industry. After the examination of the current state of distributed energy generation and the cost-effectiveness analyses, the alternative scenarios were created by the experts andactors to reveal the most plausible future development paths of the DE business.

During the scenario sessions, the main driving forces of the future developmentwere identified. The most impacting drivers were determined: state of the infrastructure and the level of the regulation in business. After this, four different scenarios were developed to describe the future business environment of the global business environment of the indus-try.

With the help of scenarios and technology analysis, new business concept descriptions were created for future market in the field of distributed energy systems. EU-15, Russia, India and China were seen as the most potential markets. In spite of found factors that are barriers for business, great potential from the market was found for distributed energy sys-tems. From the Finnish companies' pointof view, diesel- and gas reciprocating engines, wind power, small hydro power, and bio energy were considered as the most potential technologies to generate new business.