Description
In the literature attention is paid what community energy (CE) entails, what it means, how it emerges, and to how and what degree it contributes to sustainable energy transitions. Relevant in this regard is work paying attention to scaling of CE as a movement and Energy Communities (EC) as organisations, particularly in terms of professionalisation and replication of projects, the ways this takes place, and conditions that (dis)favour this. This includes raising attention to issues like ECs organising themselves, choice of legal-organisational and business model (like the cooperative model), connection with the external environment, strategy and vision development, human and technical capacity. Generating further understanding into these issues is critical to enhance understanding into how energy communities deliver transformative change that contributes to achieving mission-oriented sustainability goals. Yet, there appears to be a lack of rigorous empirical research in the current body of knowledge of CE addressing the organisational dimension and scaling. To address this knowledge gap the central this paper aims to answer the following research question: In what ways do ECs scale as organisations and foster transformative change? This question is answered in a study adopting a longitudinal mixed method multi-case study design entailing five ECs that were researched systematically over a three-year time span (2021-2024). The five cases are: Les Économes (France); LICHT Leuven (Belgium); Parentium (Croatia); 050Buurtwarmte (The Netherlands); and Hyperion II (Greece). In this research the ‘Community energy development progress tool’ (CEDP) was used to collect and store data systematically. Using the CEPD a longitudinal multi-method research approach was used addressing both qualitative and quantitative research methods, including: (quantitative) key performance indicators, surveys, expert interviews (17 in total) and case narratives (5). In order to monitor progress at both the organisational level and project level of the five pilot cases, data was collected over four successive moments in time. Results of the analysis show that several scaling approaches were used indicating ‘scaling-deep’, ‘scaling-out’, and ‘accumulation’ in each of the five pilots. (Scaling as) Growing was observed in four out of five cases, and scaling-up was observed in two pilots. The analysis also revealed that the five pilots contributed to transformative change in different ways, from lobbying to change national legislation and policy frameworks to current and future CO2 reductions via change in energy consumption behaviours and instalment of various renewable energy technologies. In addition, the study revealed several barriers to organisational growth and scaling, as well as ways to resolve them.Period | 4 Dec 2024 |
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Event title | 6th ESEIA International Conference 2024: “Net Zero and Beyond” |
Event type | Conference |
Conference number | 6 |
Location | Kuopio, FinlandShow on map |
Degree of Recognition | International |
Keywords
- community energy
- transformative change
- scaling
- replication
- sustainable energy
- social innovation
Documents & Links
- Presentation Hoppe et al._Scaling community energy_6th ESEIA conference_04122024
File: application/pdf, 1.48 MB
Type: Text