Operationalizing Participation: Key Obstacles and Drivers to Citizen Energy Community Formation in Europe's Energy Transition

Notwithstanding the diversification discourses on the energy transition, the supply of energy remains substantially organized along traditional power structures, namely largescale generation facilities and centralized grids. Until recently, there has been little or no citizen involvement beyond that of consumer, bounded by the supply and demand parameters of the market. However, this is changing. Citizens are increasingly encouraged to take on more diverse roles, ranging from active consumer to more participative prosumer arrangements. This shift offers what have heretofore been unlikely opportunities, particularly in terms of the democratization and diversification of how energy is produced and consumed. Two vehicles to emerge from a recent policy cycle of the European Union are Citizen Energy Communities (CECs) and Renewable Energy Communities (RECs). Both legal entities (in the EU at least) frame a diverse range of financial instruments, business models, and citizen groupings that typically comprise the new energy infrastructure projects that characterize the Energy Transition in Europe. This presentation will introduce findings from the ACCEPT H2020 project, for which the authors utilized a multi-level analysis of the intersecting governance and socio-political frameworks that impact CEC formation. From this, we were able to develop a typology of key drivers and obstacles motivating citizen participation in CEC and REC projects across Europe.