3.1. European Policies
Europe has long been at the forefront of research and development of solutions to accelerate and facilitate the energy transition, particularly through the collective engagement of its citizens. Although present in discourse and political claims for decades (see for example the role of consumers in Article 2 (1) of the Directive 2011/83/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2011), energy communities have been formally appearing in European legislation and policy documents since 2019. The Clean energy for all Europeans package marks the milestone for the pervasive deployment of energy communities, no longer as national best practices, but as legal resources for a long-term European strategy. The Package was followed by eight Directives that regulated energy issues, including: energy performance in buildings, efficiency, renewables, and the electricity market. The EU Directives, established by the CEP, seek to put in place appropriate legal frameworks to enable the transition and empower citizens in the energy sector, defining rules for the determination of enabling mechanisms for the participation of citizens in the energy market, how they would share it (collectively and individually), as well as the storage facilities and means.
These aspects have been drawn by the Directive on common rules for the internal electricity market (DIRECTIVE (EU) 2018/2001 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 11 December 2018 on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources (recast)
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/IT/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32018L2001&from=EN, accessed on 3 December 2021), where citizens willing to participate in such communities are granted rights and obligations, fair, equal treatment, and protection under the Union law (Art 16 of the Directive) as distribution system operators. It introduces the concept of renewable energy communities and fosters member states to ensure that renewable energy communities can participate equally in available support programs with other participants. In addition, RECs “
have led to significant added value in terms of local acceptance of renewable energy and access to additional private capital resulting in local investment, greater consumer choice, and increased citizen participation in the energy transition”
[22]. The directive frames these communities as legal entities controlled by local actors in proximity of the energy production facilities
[7][22], tailored to the directives of the national laws.
In parallel, the revised Internal Electricity Market Directive (EU) 2019/944 defined the citizens’ energy community as “
a legal entity based on voluntary and open participation”
[23][24], also including several actors such as local authorities, municipalities, and small businesses; the main purpose is to provide its members or partners or the territory in which it operates with “
environmental, economic or social benefits at the community level, rather than generating financial profits”
[25]. This also includes the participation of the community in the generation and distribution (in some cases also storage) of renewable energy for the benefit of their members. The two European Directives therefore draw these communities that, in the first case, provide for the sole production of renewable energy and only within the proximity of the legal entity established, with the possibility of participation for SMEs. The others also accept other sources, not necessarily in proximity, and only allow the participation of small companies.
These boundaries, drivers, barriers, and principles of energy communities
[7][26] have eventually been strengthened by the Fit for 55 package (Renewable Energy Directive) of July 2021 to comply with the Green Deal objective of Europe climate neutrality by 2050, which foresees a greenhouse emissions reduction of 55% by 2030 and corrects the percentage of necessary renewables produced by 2030 from 30% to 40%. To achieve this collective goal, energy communities need to be fostered as complementary forces able to contribute to a large share of the renewables production. Since the package, in its solidarity policies and carbon pricing revenue distributions, affirms that “
100% of revenues from carbon pricing needs to flow back to EU citizens”, energy communities can consider if and how a revenue distribution plan could be useful to overcome economic barriers to their emergence and strengthening
[25][27]. The development of solidarity schemes would help to overcome inequality issues in citizen engagement policies among European countries.
3.2. Italian Policies
As already mentioned in the Introduction, in Italy the Decreto-legge 30 December 2019 n. 162, (Milleproroghe), converted in Law n.8 in February 28 2020, contains art.42-bis “Self-consumption from Renewables” which, anticipating the text of transposition of the Renewable Energy Directive 2001/2018, grants the possibility to realize collective self-consumption and renewable energy communities, taking up the parameters defined respectively by art. 21 and art. 22 of the Directive itself, but with few additional restrictions. In Italy, the decree concretizes some of the indications of the European “Renewable Energy Directive” (RED II) and establishes the possibility of creating communities that exchange energy for the purpose of collective self-consumption.
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Enhance the competitiveness of the Country in order to reduce the gap between the energy price and costs compared to the EU while ensuring that the longer-term transition (2030–2050) does not compromise the Italian and EU industrial system in favour of extra-EU systems;
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Achieve, in a sustainable way, the environmental and decarbonisation goals (2030) determined at the EU level with a specific regard to the objectives defined by COP21 and in synergy with the National Strategy for Sustainable Development. On a national level, the scenario promises to phase out coal-fuelled thermoelectric plants by 2030;
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Continue to strengthen the supply security and system and infrastructural flexibility.
The SEN formed the programmatic and policy basis for the subsequent adoption of the Integrated National Energy and Climate Plan (PNIEC), which took place in January 2020. The plan is composed by 5 lines of action, intended as integrated and interlinked axis of actions: decarbonisation, efficiency, energy security development of the internal energy market, research, innovation, and competitiveness. The plan sets the objective of a 30% increase in the use of energy from renewables. The plan also implements the European Directives by declaring the will to strengthen the action and the establishment of energy communities, through a prior analysis to identify possible impacts on the system in relation to possible models of implementation of communities and aspects of discipline (e.g., physical and/or virtual configurations, geographical perimeter). The Plan also explores ways in which communities can be an additional tool to support households in energy poverty, particularly where direct interventions (e.g., with self-consumption facilities) are not technically possible. Finally, the plan explores the possibility for these communities, in addition to producing, storing, and consuming energy from renewable sources, to provide additional services such as efficiency services, charging services for electric vehicles, and the provision of other ones.
In 2020, the
Rilancio Decree Law provided some fiscal measures in the field, which should be oriented to facilitate investment in energy improvement of the building stock. In this framework, tax deductions for expenses incurred (so-called Superbonus 110%) can also benefit energy communities or cooperatives with indivisible ownership for interventions carried out on properties owned by them and assigned for the enjoyment of their members. In this vein, the Italian Recovery Plan (National Recovery and Resilience Plan) (
https://www.governo.it/sites/governo.it/files/PNRR.pdf, accessed on 3 December 2021) has allocated 2.2 billion for the 100% financing for photovoltaic systems and configurations of collective self-consumption and energy communities. The recipients, however, will be Public Administrations, as well as families, and small enterprises in municipalities with fewer than 5000 inhabitants. The expected costs amount to 2.2 billion of direct investment, distributed as follows: 1600 million to renewable energy communities and 600 million for collective self-consumption.
3.3. Regional Policies
Despite the rich framework, and equally solid perspectives, the Italian administrative configuration compels one to observe the issue from the regional dimension. Before the enactment of the Decreto-legge 30 December 2019 n. 162 (Milleproroghe), there were, in fact, cases of local vanguards in the field of energy communities, such as the case of the Piedmont region, which was the first to adopt a law on the subject: Regional Law n.12 of 3 August 2018 “Promotion of the institution of energy communities”. This was followed by the Puglia region with the Regional Law 9 August 2019, n. 45 “Promotion of the institution of energy communities”.
In recent years, the Emilia Romagna Region has implemented EU Directives and national laws through its Regional Energy Plan (PER), the updated version of which is currently being discussed and drafted. The plan adopts the European objectives for 2020, 2030, and 2050, in terms of climate and energy as a driver of development for the regional economy, and, in particular, the reduction of climate-altering emissions, the increase in the share of consumption coverage using renewable sources, and the increase of energy efficiency in buildings, public assets, transport, and production activities.
In parallel, the Region has published the Patto per il lavoro e per il Clima (Pact for Work and Climate) (
https://www.regione.emilia-romagna.it/pattolavoroeclima, accessed on 3 December 2021), a strategic, choral document of declarations of intent for the ecological transition of the region. The Pact has several axes, including the one on ecology, which sets the goal of achieving carbon neutrality before 2050, in line with the European strategy, and the transition to 100% renewable energy by 2035, which the Region also intends to pursue by formalizing the role of energy communities.
The pact mentions the need to draft a Regional Law on Energy Communities to increase the production and use of renewable energy and storage, including in a widespread form. Another regional platform is the smart specialization strategy (S3 2021–2027) that was approved by the Legislative Assembly with resolution no. 45 of 30 June 2021. The Strategy will be an integral part of the Por Fesr 2021–2027. Eight areas of strategic specialization have been identified: agri-food, building and construction, mechatronics and motor engineering, health and wellness industries, cultural and creative ones, innovation in services, digital and logistics, energy and sustainable development, and tourism. Among the axis of intervention, the “Theme 10—Cities and communities of the future” of the Strategy, tackles “Affordable and sustainable technologies and solutions for energy efficiency (including Energy Communities, Positive Energy District/Building and hospitals)”.
Hence, the regional framework is the main direct level to discipline energy communities and civic activism towards the topics. However, some local and municipal devices, such as the Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plan (SECAP), are aimed at implementing and tailoring the local implementation of such objectives. In the same vein, European projects have been experimenting extensively with the possibility to create, organize, and maintain local experiences of energy communities. The following section will explore the lessons learned for these projects and the outcomes on the territory.