The Transposition of Energy Communities into Swedish Regulations: Overview and Critique of Emerging Regulations

Jenny Palm

doi:10.3390/en14164982

Abstract

One organizational innovation introduced by the clean energy for all Europeans package (CEP) is that of the energy community (EC), including the renewable energy community (REC) and citizen energy community (CEC). The translation of related directives into national legislation is underway in Sweden, and the Swedish Energy Market Inspectorate (Ei) has proposed a new law on ECs, which has been sent for consultation. This article analyzes the Ei proposal and the responses from the 27 referral bodies commenting on the new EC regulations. Positive aspects of the proposal were that it would be a law on ECs and that it would be easy to start and run an EC. Critics were concerned that the law was too vague, the relationship between existing cooperatives and the new ECs was not clear, both CEC and REC are used instead of only using one term, there is a lack of suggestions on supportive measures for ECs, ECs will have less favorable conditions than other micro-producers of electricity, there is a lack of barrier analysis and visions of a future of ECs, and finally, that the situation for marginalized households was not dealt with in the proposal.

Highlights

An energy transition from centralized and fossil-based energy towards decentralized and renewable energy has been advocated by governments, businesses, and academia.In the European Union (EU), it has become a strategy to enable communities to take an active role in the energy market in the hopes of transitioning to an increasingly local, renewable, and participatory energy system
The aim of the article is to analyze the Energy Market Inspectorate (Ei)’s proposed new law on energy community (EC) together with the consultation reports, to scrutinize how the suggested transposition of the EU directives meets the requirements of the enabling framework, and how Sweden will facilitate and incentivize ECs as new emergent market actors
The reasoning behind a regulation or a policy can be captured together with arguments for and against a decision [39,40]. These documents make up an interdependent stock of written arguments, intentions, and interest representation, which embody the story of policymaking for the development of ECs in a region [41,42]

Summary

Introduction

In the European Union (EU), it has become a strategy to enable communities to take an active role in the energy market in the hopes of transitioning to an increasingly local, renewable, and participatory energy system These citizen-led energy communities (ECs) have multiple individual and societal benefits and are expected to have a major role in the future energy system. By combining the environmental advantages of renewable energy and the socio-economic benefits of engaging a community, the wish is to develop a future energy system characterized by being local, renewable, and participatory and which will contribute to a thriving community advancing the energy transition [5,6] Encompassing these potentials, ECs are expected to play a significant role in the EU’s energy system in the future. RED II states that Member States should “carry out an assessment of the existing barriers” to developing RECs (Article 22, (3)) and “provide an enabling framework to promote and facilitate the development of renewable energy communities.” The Member

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