Diverse scaling strategies of energy communities: A comparative case study analysis of varied governance contexts

Abstract

Energy communities equip citizens with democratic control over their energy assets, help them capture value locally and create a green, just and decentralized energy system. Such energy communities have grown, replicated their experiences and have been institutionalized in diverse settings. In short, there are plenty of empirical examples of energy communities that have scaled. In this article we explore how varied governance contexts contribute to the scaling of community-based energy governance and in effect the actor constellations of diverse institutional settings. Through a comparative case study analysis based on semi-structured interviews and document analysis, we examined 3 distinct cases: Courant d’Air in Belgium, Coopernico in Portugal and Zuiderlicht in The Netherlands. Each case illustrates a different type of scaling journey and a varied governance context - suggesting that multiple pathways towards scaling exist. Our results show that the mixing of cooperative, state and market logics can potentially result in trade-offs between the democratic potential of energy communities and the efficiencies other logics offer to the energy transition. We argue that an institutional logics framework allows for a clearer understanding of the impact governance settings have on the scalability of energy communities as well as the composition of these countries' energy systems.