Comparative study of the design and set-up of seven distinct Energy Communities throughout Europe using the Multi-Actor Multi-Criteria Analysis

Description

Energy Communities (ECs) are emerging players in the future energy market in the European Union. While policymakers promote their development by introducing new legal entities for ECs, local stakeholders experience various challenges in setting up ECs that fulfill the technical, economic, and environmental conditions while guaranteeing broad acceptance among affected stakeholders. Taking the objectives of potential participants into account for the development and implementation of ECs is a key factor for their success. With this study, we explore the different possible configurations and the site-specific criteria that are essential in the set-up of ECs. To do so, we studied the design phase of ECs in seven case studies, located in four European countries (Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands, and Greece). In each of the case studies, a multi-actor multi-criteria analysis (MAMCA), was used for a stakeholder-based ex-ante evaluation of different EC alternatives. Using the different steps of the MAMCA process as a comparison framework, the paper highlights commonalities, and differences for each site. Alternatives to the current local energy market took distinct forms in the different case studies and both new and traditional actors of the energy market were involved. Most stakeholders considered emission reductions, community building, economic and technical aspects as important for the EC design. The findings can be used as a guidance on what stakeholders to involve, and how different options for ECs can look like respecting the site characteristics.

Periode	2 sep 2021
Evenementstitel	RGS-IBG annual conference
Evenementstype	Conference
Mate van erkenning	International