Who Benefits from Participatory Energy Transitions? International Experiences of Community Energy

Participatory energy transitions are a worldwide phenomenon. Different regional and national practices, styles, modes and structures have been developed. One of these forms is community energy, which means more collaborative forms of participation in renewable energy projects. Community energy is involved in and dependent on national climate action policies. A multitude of community energy models differing in scale of technology, legal and finance structure and degree of involvement have evolved. The purpose of our contribution is to examine and compare practices between some European countries and overseas territories such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada, USA and Japan. The focus is on the dependencies of national policies, economic dynamics and framework conditions, cooperation and collaboration with regional administrations and local actor networks. More precisely it is pointed out that specific different structures are formed, which are combined in a typology. Different types of community energy (may) have differing impacts on the social composition of participating communities. In addition, special forms have been developed in some countries to address specific disadvantaged communities. In our contribution, we address these issues based on results from case studies and surveys.