European Union
In 2019 the European Union adopted "the Clean energy for all Europeans package" to promote and encourage engagement of its citizens in climate protection and energy transition. The package introduced new (in addition to prosumers) political and legal entities of energy communities, namely: citizen energy community (CEC) and renewable energy community (REC). Each type of energy community was incorporated in a separate EU directive.
Renewable energy communities were incorporated in the 2018 Directive on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources (recast, RED II). REC is a legal entity:
- 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 entity;
- whose shareholders or members are natural persons, SMEs or local authorities, including municipalities;
- whose primary purpose 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.
Citizen energy communities were introduced in the 2019 Directive on common rules for the internal electricity market (IEMD). In accordance with the provisions of Directive 2019/944, citizen energy communities:
- are shareholder- or member-controlled entities based on voluntary and open participation, which have the right to engage in generation, distribution, supply, consumption, energy efficiency services or charging services for electric vehicles, or provide other energy services to its members or shareholders;
- have the right to be connected to distribution grids and be treated in a non-discriminatory manner in terms of regulation or access to all electricity markets;
- have the right to share their own electricity production with their members in accordance with a cost-benefit analysis of distributed energy resources;
- have the right, where so permitted by the EU country in question, to own, establish, purchase or lease distribution networks subject to the applicable regulations.
In September 2024, the European Energy Communities Facility to support the development of energy communities across the EU was established.
This article incorporates text available under the CC BY 4.0 license.