In 2022, the REPowerEU Plan set an ambitious objective for energy communities: by 2025, there should have been at least one renewable energy community in every municipality with more than 10,000 inhabitants. By early 2025, only 27.3% of this objective had been achieved.
There are certainly multiple factors that can explain this gap. However, regulatory barriers and the implementation of EU legislation are frequently identified by project developers as important challenges to the development of energy communities and energy sharing.
smartEn, as part of FEDECOM and INTELLIGENT, has joined forces with four EU-funded projects (LocalRES, MASTERPIECE, STUNNED, and U2DEMO) to develop a joint Policy Brief containing 11 recommendations. Drawing on the projects’ real-life experience and work across different European contexts, the recommendations identify actions that can be taken at European, national and local levels to enable citizens to play a more active role in the energy transition through energy communities and energy sharing.
From removing unnecessary administrative requirements and unlocking the full potential of energy sharing, to facilitating access to data for DSOs, the recommendations address practical regulatory and implementation challenges faced by energy communities and other actors on the ground.
