| dc.description.abstract | Energy communities are not a new concept, but their significance has risen over the last decades, especially in the context of the increasing role of renewable energy. This is because energy communities can provide many benefits, from technical advantages for the electricity grid to relieving resistance against renewable energy projects to increased social cohesion among citizens. To realize their potential, energy communities need policy support, which currently exists on three policy-making levels: European, national and regional. Looking at these levels of policy-making in a Dutch context, this study aims to assess to what extent these policies are suitable to support energy communities. I argue that for policies to be considered suitable to support energy communities, these policies need to have a broad and holistic perspective on energy communities and should be coherent across policy-making levels.
To assess to what extent policies are holistic and coherent, an analytical framework is created based on insights by Walker (2011). This framework is used to identify six interpretations of energy communities at the three policy-making levels: as actor, as scale, as place, as network, as process and as identity. The more interpretations can be identified on a particular policy-making level, the more holistic the policies are. The more overlap between policy-making levels, the higher the coherence. Combining document analysis with interviews, it is found that on the European level three interpretations can be identified, while four interpretations are found on the national level four and all six interpretations can be identified on the regional level. This means policy support for energy communities cannot be considered holistic on the European and the national level, but can be on the regional level. Furthermore, policy support is not coherent across policy-making levels, as the number of interpretations varies across levels, as well as which interpretations are identified. This may have implications for policymakers, as they may need to broaden and integrate policies to better support energy communities. | |
