Exploring Institutional and Socio-Economic Settings for the Development of Energy Communities in Europe
Author/s
Sciullo, Alessandro; Gilcrease, Gregory Winston; Perugini, Mario; Padovan, Dario; Curli, Barbara; [et al.]Date
2022-02-21Keywords
Energy communities
Renewable energy sources
Regulatory framework
Energy systems
Comparative analysis
Energy transition
Abstract
Energy communities (ECs), intended as collective action initiatives in the energy field involving citizens’ participation, have been gaining relevance for the past decades as an alternative way to organize the energy chain to challenge the incumbent system. With Europe’s recently adopted Clean Energy Package, ECs found a formal recognition by the European Union as potential actors of the transition of the energy system towards a wider and more decentralized use of renewable sources. Although the potential role of ECs in the transition is therefore hardly questionable, a thorough comprehension of the enabling factors that might foster their diffusion and scaling up is still lacking. Through a comparative analysis of the evolutionary trajectories in six EU countries regarding their energy systems, their regulatory frameworks and their historical evolution of ECs, namely through the example of cooperative models, this paper aims at providing some preliminary evidence about the factors and ...
Type
article