Role of social networks in upscaling energy communities: Experiences from the Netherlands

The importance of energy communities (ECs) has been increasingly acknowledged in recent years. However, ECs exert limited impact and confront several barriers. Social networks share resources and knowledge and are thus expected to support the development and upscaling of ECs by enabling more extensive collaborations with other actors in the social networks. This study analyses two social networks of ECs in the Netherlands. It also examined the extent to which these networks can support ECs in five ways of upscaling (replication, growth in scale, accumulation, mainstreaming and transformation). 58 EC initiators were interviewed to determine their relationships with other actors in their networks. The study findings revealed that ECs interact primarily with province-level intermediaries, municipalities and other ECs, which results in replication, growth in scale and accumulation. ECs should collaborate with more diverse actors to scale in terms of mainstreaming and transformation and to become serious contributors to the energy transition.