The energy transition is one of the biggest challenges ahead and is identified as an opportunity to mitigate ghg emissions as well as to build fairer energy systems (Healy and Barry, 2017; McCauley and Heffron, 2018). In this regard, Renewable Energy Communities (RECs) are considered as an essential measure to boost renewable energies, energy citizenship and energy democracy (Di Silvestre et al., 2021; Wahlund and Palm, 2022). Moreover, the EU is placing great emphasis on RECs and collective self-consumption as two key-strategies to implement a just renewable energy transition (Verde and Rossetto, 2020). Relying on a growing legislation on “community-owned renewable energy” in the EU, several experiences of RECs are slowly emerging across the EU member states, showing both opportunities and limitations of these innovative tools and socio-legal institutions (Heldeweg and Saintier, 2020) in effectively changing energy systems. In particular, the extremely complex regulatory system is still under development in EU countries so that the RECs governance continue to remain uncertain, thus hampering their reinforcement as transition tools.
While a more critical literature on RECs is emerging, the general approach remains excessively optimistic on their potential for transforming fossil energy systems – at the roots of the extractive capitalist rationales – into green and ecological ones. Without neglecting the key-role of RECs in the energy transition, the aim of this session is to invite critical research perspectives in order to strenghten the debate on how to design and achieve a just transition through community energy actions. Specifically, we are interested in both empirical and theoretical contributions that reflect on existing experiences as well as on on-going projects of RECs and other forms of community energy across the whole european space (urban but also rural and inner areas, island territories…) to provide considerations on geographical and cartographical analysis, drivers and obstacles, potentially related conflicts and benefits, resources spatial implications (technic endowments life cycle issues, socio-environmental impacts), social acceptance, green (washing?) narratives, RECs governance schemes. The session will be in english and will host individual as well group presentations.
Daniele Mezzapelle (1); Beatrice Ruggieri (2); Silvia Grandi Grandi (3)
(1) Università per Stranieri di Siena (Unistrasi), (2) Università di Bologna (Unibo), (3) Università di Bologna (Unibo)
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