Electric vehicles with bidirectional charging, ‘everything as a service’, demand side flexibility and hydrogen are just some of the innovations long predicted by the energy experts who helped shape and integrate them. The emergence of energy communities, however, happened more quickly. In the space of just a few months, they became the new hot topic of new energy. But how did this happen, and what does it mean for the future energy system, especially within the context of a world in needs of a good health and economic recovery strategy?
We could argue that it all started with the two European directives (the Renewable Energy Directive for Renewable Energy Communities, and the Electricity Market Directive for Citizen Energy Communities) giving energy communities unprecedented rights. But giving credit where credit is due, these two directives are the results of energy communities, represented by the European cooperative REScoop, demonstrating to the European Commission that they have an essential role to play in the energy transition. Energy communities argued as well that every single person in Europe has the inherent right to take ownership of such a fundamental matter and yield benefits from it.