Socio-economic, governance and regulatory conditions (SUSTENANCE deliverable 3.2)

The deliverable presents the details of the essential conditions for achieving socio-economic development and citizen engagement in more autarkic energy systems, and specifically for establishing new organizational configuration for the demonstrator sites. It’s verified based on clearly mapping the necessary socioeconomic, regulatory and governance settings for creating local energy communities (source: SUSTENANCE Grant Agreement). This report accomplishes its objective by adapting and applying a four-step environmental design framework. The framework translates conceptual aims of self-sufficient energy communities (derived from the obstacles and limitations identified in deliverable 3.1) into operationalizable design solutions for each demonstrator site (combining social solutions with the technical interventions described in deliverable 2.1). The organisation of socio-technical design solutions follows the typology of autarkic energy communities that is described in deliverable 3.3.

The report is structured as follows. Chapter two introduces an environmental design framework for moving from obstacles (D3.1) to conditions (this D3.2) and for translating the planned interventions of SUSTENANCE (D2.1) into community design solutions (this D3.2). Chapter three reviews available knowledge about community autarky primarily from a socio-spatial perspective. Chapter four briefly describes the Danish, Dutch, Indian, and Polish demonstrators based on the findings of D2.1 and D3.1 and applies the environmental design framework to delineate community design solutions for the socioeconomic, organisational, and citizen engagement development of the demonstrators. Chapter five attempts a summary and synthesis of the recommendations.