Environmental Assessment of Energy Communities: Categorisation of Environmental Assessment Approaches

Abstract

The increasing greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere has accentuated the urgent need to reduce anthropogenic climate change. There is a strong focus on mitigating energy-related emissions, as the energy sector is the largest greenhouse gas emitter globally. One central mitigation pathway lies in the transition towards a sustainable energy system fuelled by low-carbon renewable energy sources. A comprehensive and fundamental transformation of the energy sector is needed to integrate large shares of renewable energy and accommodate their intermittent, distributed production characteristics. Lower costs and ease of access to renewables have encouraged new players to emerge within the energy system. Community-led initiatives, such as energy communities, have gained traction as crucial elements in facilitating the energy transition by encouraging active citizen participation in energy-related matters. Energy communities are primarily involved in the energy supply side, collectively producing energy from renewable energy resources to self-consume on-site, and aim to deliver various environmental, social, and economic benefits to their participants. So far, the literature has given little attention to the ways in which the environmental impact of energy communities can be grasped, even though these are central aspects of the participation motivations and pursued goals. Thus, this study explores the approaches applied in the scientific literature to assess the environmental impacts of energy communities by conducting a systematic literature review. In addition, semi-structured interviews with representatives of five Pan-European energy communities were conducted to compare results between the literature review and the real-world cases. This study finds that the literature focuses on assessing the environmental impacts in terms of GHG or CO2 emission reductions of energy communities, prevalently employing solar PV to supply electrical energy to residential users. The findings of the interviews show that the energy communities’ environmental performance is deemed central; however, explicit assessments are either made externally or omitted altogether. The results of this study suggest that the literature’s focus does not fully coincide with the realities of real-world energy communities. Thus, future research is needed to examine real-world energy communities, taking into account case-specific contexts, to help the development of energy communities in practice.