#1 – Frameworks for enabling Community energy
How can citizens, communities, and national coalitions find paths to upgrade community energy development?
The LIFE COMET partners have compiled the Community Energy Upgrade Toolkit: a comprehensive guide to help stakeholders strengthen policy frameworks, develop viable business models, and build inclusive, citizen-led energy communities.
The toolkit compiles key European resources, organised into three themes and a series of practical paths, or guiding questions that help different actors find the right tools for their needs.
THEME 1: FRAMEWORKS FOR ENABLING COMMUNITY ENERGY
This theme explores how policies, legal frameworks, and strategic planning can better support energy communities; from improving EU directive transposition to embedding energy communities in regional strategies and developing robust national frameworks.
Path 1: How to improve transposition of community energy–related directives?
REScoop.eu Briefing on the Revised Renewable Energy Directive (RED)
This briefing analyses the latest updates to the Renewable Energy Directive (RED) under the Fit for 55 and REPowerEU packages. It offers targeted policy recommendations to help Member States integrate Renewable Energy Communities (RECs) into national frameworks, from offshore wind planning to public procurement. The briefing is particularly useful for policymakers and national coalitions seeking concrete steps to better embed citizen participation and local ownership in the renewable transition.
Path 2: How to build and include community energy into local, regional, and national strategies?
Enabling Energy Communities – A Toolkit for Just Transition Regions
Developed for local and regional policymakers, especially in regions shifting away from carbon-intensive industries, this toolkit highlights how community energy can drive a just transition by engaging in energy-related activities such as production, consumption, storage, sharing, and aggregation. It offers replicable models, practical guidance, and case studies showing how inclusive, locally anchored energy communities can enhance social cohesion, create jobs, and ensure that renewable energy benefits remain in the community.
Path 3: How to improve regulatory frameworks for community energy?
This roadmap provides a step-by-step guide for Member States to establish enabling conditions for energy communities. Promoting an iterative, “learning-by-doing” approach, it introduces five foundational building blocks: clear definitions for energy communities, access to information and awareness-raising, financial support, minimal regulatory conditions, and a registration and monitoring framework. It’s an essential resource for policymakers aiming to adapt national policies to local contexts while encouraging experimentation and growth in energy communities.
Discover more about these selected tools in the full Toolkit and its 7 upgrading paths here.
The next blog in this series will focus on the second theme of the toolkit: Practical development of community energy, and showcase tools that support hands-on implementation of citizen-led projects.
