Published in the book: POWERCOOP - Comunidades Energéticas de Autoconsumo: Análisis Organizacional Desde una Perspectiva Jurídica, de Gestión y Tecnológica

Abstract: Renewable energy communities have been proposed as a key piece of the European energy transition. While these can boost citizen participation and deliver multiple benefits to their members, scarce research has managed to report on empiric case studies and their drivers, barriers, and success factors. Furthermore, there is also limited evidence on the ability of energy communities to engage with energy-poor households. In this context, we first map the ten steps in creating the Telheiras Renewable Energy Community in Portugal as an innovative energy-sharing approach developed by citizens, associations, and local government. Following, we analyse the results of two surveys to characterise the volunteers involved in the energy community working group that built the project from the ground up and the households that signed up to join the energy community’s pilot project. In line with previous studies, we find that volunteers and energy community members tend to be male, highly educated (prominently, engineers), and with higher incomes, and that environmental and social drivers are the main motivations. Nevertheless, the positive return on investment is an important pre-condition to joining the energy community, highlighting the importance of having a solid economic case. In this context, we argue that energy poverty mitigation is not a naturally occurring feature for energy communities and that the participation of vulnerable and hard-to-reach households must be fostered through particular approaches and conditions. Creating a local-scale technical and financial support system could enable more citizens, associations, and local governments to develop their own energy communities.