Power to the people? Implications of the Clean Energy Package for the role of community ownership in Europe's energy transition

• Author: Joshua Roberts
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/reel.12346
• Published date: 01 July 2020
• Date: 01 July 2020

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  RECIEL. 2020;29:232–244.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/reel

1 | INTRODUCTION

The need to tack le climate change and el iminate the use of fossil

fuels present s many daunting societal challe nges. At the global leve l,

sufficient cl imate ambition has yet to em erge. Filling the ga p left by

policymaker s, citizens – both ind ividually and coll ectively thro ugh com-

munity initia tives – are taking ac tion by investing and t aking ownership

of renewables, energy efficiency and other clean energy technologies.

In Europe, commun ity energy is not new. In the earl y twentieth

century, many distr ibuted electr icity and heating n etworks were

constructe d and operated by local auth orities and cooperative s.1 In

the late 1970s in Denmark , local communit ies started deve loping

wind project s to present an alternat ive to nuclear energy.2 C opied in

the Netherla nds and Germany in th e 1980s, these communi ties

helped pioneer the community renewable energy movement in

Europe.

While communit y energy has main ly developed accordi ng to

local and natio nal socio-political an d legal contexts, it has ga ined in-

creasing atten tion from European Union (EU) pol icy for several rea-

sons. First , the integration of renewab les into the European intern al

energy market (IEM) has negatively impacted community energy

projects. F or instance, Direc torate-Gener al (DG) Competitio n’s

 1L Holstenka mp, ‘The Rise an d Fall of Electric ity Distrib ution Cooper atives in Germa ny’

(1 September 2015) <https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstr act_id=2727780>.

See also RES coop MECISE, ‘T he Transition to Ene rgy Democra cy’ (REScoo p.eu 2019) 17.

 2J Roberts , F Bodman and R Ryb ski, ‘Commun ity Power: Mode l Legal Framewo rks for

Citizen-Owned Renewable Energy’ (ClientEarth 2014) 34.

Received: 28 Janu ary 2020 

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  Revised: 11 May 2020 

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  Accepted: 15 May 2020

DOI: 10 .1111/reel .12346

SPECIAL ISSUE ARTICLE

Power to the people? Implications of the Clean Energy Package

for the role of community ownership in Europe’s energy

transition

Joshua Roberts

This is an open ac cess article un der the terms of th e Creative Commo ns Attributio n-NonCommer cial-NoDeriv s License, which pe rmits use and di stribution in a ny

medium, prov ided the original wo rk is properly cite d, the use is non-comm ercial and no modif ications or adapt ations are made.

© 2020 The Autho rs. Review of Europe an, Comparative & In ternational Envir onmental Law pub lished by Wiley Perio dicals LLC.

Correspondence

Email: josh.roberts@rescoop.eu Abstract

Since the 1970s, citizens have organized t hrough community ene rgy initiatives to

take ownership of renew able energy produc tion. The European Unio n’s (EU) new

Clean Energy for A ll Europeans Legislative Pac kage (CEP) now formally recognizes

this set of actors as ‘ren ewable’ and ‘citizen’ energy commu nities. This articl e aims

to assess whether th e CEP – namely the recast Ren ewable Energy Direc tive and

the energy mar ket design legislation – guarantees the rol e of energy communities in

Europe’s energy tra nsition. The article demonst rates how, due to their lack of recog-

nition at EU level, internal e nergy market and compet ition rules, including t he 2014

Guidelines on State A id for Environmental Protection and E nergy (EEAG), have over-

looked the unique char acteristics and challe nges of energy communities, r aising legal

issues around equal ity and non-discrimination. Ultimate ly, the article conclu des that

the CEP establish es an unprecedented fram ework with potential to suppor t com-

munity ownership in the energy sector. However, transposition and implementation

will test the legal s trength of the new rule s, as will the revision of the EEAG . The

results of these pr ocesses will reinforce or impede t he growth of energy commun ities

throughout Europe.