Business models for energy communities: A review of key issues and trends

Abstract

The ‘Clean Energy for All Europeans’ legislative package places citizens and communities at the heart of the European energy policy by promoting local energy generation, consumption and trading. As only recently energy communities were formally defined in the European regulatory framework, the literature on energy community business models is still scattered and a clear systematization of community arrangements is missing. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive view of the prevailing and emergent energy communities business models, focusing on the value proposition offered by these initiatives. Community projects across Europe are analyzed and eight community business model archetypes are identified having the current European regulatory framework as background. The Business Model Canvas and the Lean Canvas frameworks are used to characterize and compare these archetypes. The main differences between business models are examined to highlight the most relevant strengths and barriers for energy community development. This analysis revealed the dominance of traditional self-consumption place-based communities, while business models involving differentiated services as demand flexibility, aggregation, energy efficiency and electric mobility are still scarce. However, the research around novel business models must be strengthened as they are expected to become crucial in upholding energy communities as key players in the energy transition and foster the regulatory framework evolution.