ENERGY COMMUNITIES: INSTITUTIONS, FINANCING, ECONOMICS

This Ph.D. thesis investigates the institutional roots and policy aspects of the Europe’s evolving energy community organizational form in Chapter I and Chapter II in the period before 2022. Chapter III concentrates mostly on the new Italian energy communities which appear in the period of 2022-2024. Chapter I presents a bibliometric analysis of academic literature on energy communities (ECs) from 2012 to 2022. Results of the bibliometric analysis were used to conduct the systematic literature review that examines the evolution of research topics, methodologies, and geographical focus. The analysis reveals a shift from the initial focus on grassroots EC initiatives in Northern Europe to a growing interest in the role of policy, technology, and economic viability. Chapter II maps and classifies ECs in the European Union before the transposition of the Renewable Energy Directive II (RED II) and the Internal Electricity Market (IEM) Directive. The chapter highlights the diversity of EC models across different member states and analyzes factors influencing their deployment, with particular attention to the institutional and policy contexts of France and Italy. Chapter III begins with examination of the potential impact of various EC business models on key energy market agents and the overall electricity system. It then analyzes the efficiency of Italian policies and regulations governing ECs, focusing on the structure of premium tariff for shared energy and the valorization of avoided grid usage. The second part of Chapter III investigates the financing of EC capital expenditures in Italy. Employing semi-structured interviews with 19 financing and ECs building actors, the chapter explores the roles of different financing actors, the instruments used, and the recipients of financing. The subsequent thematic analysis reveals the diversity of the expertise needed to establish ECs, categories of building partnerships, and the role of main EC promoters. The chapter continues by outlining the economic and ESG expectations of financing and building actors, as well as their pre-investment assessment practices and intentions for evaluating the impact of ECs. Finally, interactions between financiers and ECs are analyzed through the management theories. The concept of 'shared energy' is framed using common pool resources theory, which provides insights into potential obstacles and solutions that ECs may encounter in the future.