The final transposition of the RED II directive into Italian law at the end of 2021 represents a turning point for the participation of Renewable Energy Communities (RECs) in the transition policies and the effective involvement of end users. Increasing the size and power of community-owned plants makes it possible to generate new energy from renewable sources, but above all to benefit the territories and communities that host them.

If in the early implementation phase of the Renewable Energy Directive, public administrations played an important role in the start-up and operation of RECs, in this new phase it is essential to define precise roles for all potential actors involved: public and private actors who can provide resources to promote the diffusion of RECs and identify positive impacts for the entire national energy system.

Monitoring these impacts means analyzing all aspects that RECs are going to affect: from the use of new technologies to enable new services, to the definition of local development policies, from the optimal exploitation of the energy potential offered by territorial assets, to the definition of specific activities to combat energy poverty. The work of 2022, summarized in this report, aims to address this complexity, presenting the main insights that have emerged from the experiments and dialog with the actors involved in this process. The report introduces the methodologies that will be used for the assessment of the replicability potential of RECs, to the analysis of barriers and opportunities, and to the identification of optimal planning and management tools for communities.

This report also presents the results of a comparative analysis of the set of policies, mainly public, for the promotion of the energy transition implemented in the Italian regions and autonomous provinces. Financial support actions, coordination mechanisms between public and private actors, initiatives for the energy capitalization of local resources, evaluation and monitoring programs, etc., of which timing, allocated resources, facilitation tools are highlighted.

The activity conducted from the experimental point of view consisted in identifying stakeholders to set up some RECs within the same primary cabin and some industrial partners holding community monitoring and management solutions. In addition to facilitating the coming together of the two categories, the RSE analyzed during 2022 the potential of the tools in terms of planning and operation of RECs, initiating preliminary considerations for specific advanced functionalities.