Do renewable energy communities deliver energy justice? Exploring insights from 71 European cases

Abstract

A growing energy justice literature underlines that complex energy injustices in energy transition disproportionally affect vulnerable and energy-poor households. Literature and policies discuss renewable energy communities’ (RECs) potential to enable citizen participation in energy transition and shape a just transition. Low-income and energy-poor households could benefit from granting access to affordable energy tariffs and energy efficiency measures when participating in RECs. Recent EU legislation highlights RECs’ social role in energy poverty alleviation and stipulates the participation of all social groups in RECs, especially those groups that are underrepresented under RECs’ members. In this light, the energy justice framework is increasingly applied to analyse RECs’ social contributions in different countries. Still, empirical evidence of RECs’ capacity to include underrepresented and vulnerable groups and mitigate energy poverty as a particular form of energy justice remains scarce. Drawing on data collected among 71 European RECs, our exploratory research investigates how RECs engage in this social role by improving participatory procedures to enable vulnerable groups’ participation and by distributing affordable energy and energy efficiency to vulnerable households. Using the energy justice framework, we explore how RECs resonate with the three energy justice tenets (distributive, recognitional and procedural) by addressing underrepresented groups and energy poverty.

Introduction

Over the last two decades, renewable energy communities (RECs) have become critical players driving a citizen-led European energy transition [1], [2], [3]. Organised collectively, RECs engage with local households, enable local citizen participation [4] and raise social acceptance for energy transition [5], [6], [7], [8]. Pooling their members’ resources, they develop local renewable energy projects [4], [9], [10], [11]. In doing so, energy communities contribute to energy decentralisation [11], and by enabling citizen participation, they contribute to energy democratisation [12], [13]. Furthermore, by investing in renewable energy projects locally, they increase awareness of energy transition and create value locally by improving income streams, developing skills, building capacity and reducing CO2 emissions [9], [14], [15], [16], [17]. RECs may also facilitate community regeneration and autonomy [18].

Concerning equity and justice, RECs are increasingly discussed as taking a central role in overcoming energy-related injustices with a democratic, equity enhancing approach [19], [20], [21]. In Europe, up to 82 million households struggle to pay their energy bills [22]. Threatened by energy poverty, energy vulnerable groups [23] are often excluded from shaping energy transition [22]. In theory, RECs can engage with vulnerable groups and address energy poverty, e.g. by providing lower tariffs and increased energy efficiency [24]. The European legislator takes up these elements, highlights RECs’ social role in energy transition and stipulates “opportunities for renewable energy communities to advance energy efficiency at household level and (…) fight energy poverty” in the recast of the renewable energy directive (RED II) [25]. RED II further links an enabling framework “to promote and facilitate the development of renewable energy communities” [25] with the obligation to ensure the participation of all “consumers, including those in low-income or vulnerable households” [25].

However, RED II refrains from providing details on how to achieve RECs’ social role in practice. The national energy and climate plans (NECPs) should entail each member-state’s approach to transposing RED II. Until now, only the NECPs of Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece link RECs with energy poverty alleviation¹. Further, the extent to which above raised beneficial outcomes and RECs’ social role materialise beyond good practice examples is debatable [19], [26], [27]. Some scholars criticise a ‘romanticised’ narrative of energy communities [28], [29] which may be hiding shortcomings, e.g. how local communities benefit [30], [31]. Especially vulnerable communities face challenges to engage in, benefit from and develop their own local renewable energy production [32], [33], [34], [35], [36]. Currently, only some social groups have the means (e.g. economic capital, time and know-how) to participate in RECs and benefit (e.g. through enabling frameworks) from the transition to clean energy [37]. In Germany, for instance, REC members are typically middle-aged men with high income and a technical, higher education background [38]. Other groups, predominantly low-income and (energy) vulnerable groups [23], remain underrepresented [39].

In this light, the energy justice framework [40], [41] is increasingly applied to analyse RECs social contributions in different countries [42], [43], [44], [45]. Still, empirical evidence of RECs capacity to include underrepresented and vulnerable groups and mitigate energy poverty as a particular form of energy justice [46], [47], [48] remains scarce. Drawing on data collected among 71 European RECs, our exploratory research investigates how RECs engage in this social role.

We apply the energy justice framework [40] as our conceptual and analytical framework [41] to study our main research questions: Do RECs in our sample aim to facilitate vulnerable groups’ participation and energy poverty alleviation? If yes, how do they achieve their aim? If no, what challenges do RECs face? To answer our research questions, we apply a mixed-method approach. First, we conducted nine exploratory interviews with executive members of RECs to understand their perspectives on our research questions. Through the interviews, we got a feeling for the language and terminology used by RECs, especially for their understanding of ‘underrepresented groups’ and ‘energy poverty’. Second, we applied the terminology used by RECs to design an online survey. Finally, in an explorative approach, we distributed the survey mainly in Germany, France, and the Netherlands and beyond using the authors’ professional networks and the Engager² network to share the survey. Given the plurality of REC schemes [4], [19], [26] and to avoid a definition debate, we define ‘REC’ according to RED II. As a result, RECs in this paper are defined as legal entities, “(a) which, in accordance with the applicable national law, is based on open and voluntary participation, is autonomous, and is effectively controlled by shareholders or members that are located in the proximity of the renewable energy projects that are owned and developed by that legal entity³; (b) the shareholders or members of which are natural persons, SMEs or local authorities, including municipalities; (c) the primary purpose of which is to provide environmental, economic or social community benefits for its shareholders or members or for the local areas where it operates, rather than financial profits” [25]. For example, reducing CO2 emissions with increased energy efficiency is an environmental benefit; generating dividends for members an economic benefit and promoting energy democracy and investing in energy poverty mitigation a social benefit [50]. In the following, we mainly explore RECs’ social role and thus how RECs in our sample provide social benefits to different social groups.

Following this introduction, the next section introduces our conceptual approach. The methodological section 3 describes our research approach and data collection. Section 4 summarises the survey’s results. In section 5, we apply the results to the energy justice framework and our research questions. Finally, section 6 concludes and points out a need for further research.