Chris Vrettos works for REScoop.eu, the European Federation of Energy Cooperatives, where he focuses on financing, policy, and advocacy to advance community energy across Europe. He also collaborates with Electra Energy Cooperative in Greece, promoting citizen engagement in renewable energy production and supporting initiatives on collective self‑consumption, community benefits, and energy poverty alleviation. 

Vrettos is a Young Energy Ambassador for the European Sustainable Energy Week, contributing youth perspectives to EU‑level energy debates. His background includes research on the EU Green Deal, degrowth, and the social dimensions of the energy transition, and he has participated in multiple UNFCCC COPs.

BUILD UP (BUP): Energy sharing has become central to the European debate, yet in practice, many communities face technical and administrative limitations. Based on your experience, what are the most critical design flaws in national transpositions of energy sharing provisions that undermine the viability of community-led projects?

Chris Vrettos (CV): The Renewable Energy Directive and the Internal Electricity Market Directive require Member States to conduct cost-benefit analyses on setting different tariff structures for energy communities that share energy locally. Most countries have not done this, so it’s impossible to know if and how to incentivise local energy sharing. Such cost-benefit analyses in the Flemish and Brussels regions of Belgium of the local network tariff component for shared energy show that with the appropriate market design (e.g. smartly designed time of use tariffs), such localised network tariff incentives can help energy communities that share energy contribute to peak shaving.

Lastly, many Member States – and other stakeholders – conflate energy sharing (a specific activity) with energy communities (an organisational concept that can undertake activities across the energy sector). Further guidance in this respect, including through the Citizens Energy Package, would be appreciated.

BUP: Energy communities are frequently expected to contribute to system flexibility, decentralisation, and citizen engagement. However, participation in wholesale, balancing, or flexibility markets often remains inaccessible to small cooperative actors. What structural changes in market design would be necessary to allow community-scale actors to participate on equal terms, especially now that the Citizen Energy Package has been launched?

CV: As Member States are conducting their national flexibility needs assessment and setting their non-fossil flexibility targets (by January 2027), they should explicitly set targets for community-led flexibility. Grid operators (or other relevant authorities) should aim to procure a minimum amount of flexibility from energy communities (through aggregators) and/or cooperative suppliers. Members of energy communities (e.g., households, SMEs, municipalities) should thus be remunerated for their availability to provide flexibility and incentivised to shift their consumption to hours with high renewable energy availability (either through smart devices or behavioural nudges).

For wholesale markets, differentiated competitive bidding, ring-fenced just for community energy projects would be beneficial – as Ireland has done. Smaller community energy projects (those up to 100 kWp, and especially if including storage) should be completely exempted from bidding procedures and connected to the grid in a standardised and accelerated manner.

‘As Member States are conducting their national flexibility needs assessment and setting their non-fossil flexibility targets (by January 2027), they should explicitly set targets for community-led flexibility’

BUP: The revised EPBD and broader decentralisation agenda assume stronger integration between buildings, local energy systems, and citizen participation. In practical terms, what institutional or regulatory reforms are still missing at national level to enable energy communities to play a structural role in this transition?

CV: The concept of citizen-led renovation is gaining traction across the EU, with multiple pilots showing promising results. Energy communities can help members of the local community carry out the difficult task of renovating a house: bulk procure equipment to achieve economies of scale, help members apply for national subsidies, train members in renovation activities, and implement broader behavioural changes for energy efficiency.

REScoop.eu analysed how the revised EPBD highlights energy communities, and the results are broadly positive: 1) it allows renewable energy provided by an energy community to count towards the total annual primary energy use of a building to meet the Zero Energy Building status, 2) it links the set-up of One-Stop-Shops (OSS) for energy efficiency information with energy communities.

Member States should co-operate OSS with community energy stakeholders, such as national federations of energy communities. Energy communities have established dedicated OSS in several EU Member States, including Ireland, France, and Belgium, to support a citizen-led approach to renovations. The EPBD also encourages Member States to facilitate bulk renovations through energy communities by revising public procurement rules.

BUP: Through your work with energy cooperatives across Greece and at European level via REScoop.eu, you have observed significant differences in how Member States implement enabling frameworks for energy communities. Which specific regulatory provisions, for example on energy sharing, grid access, or tariff design, most directly determine whether energy communities can operate effectively or remain constrained?

CV: What’s mostly needed is high-level political commitment. The Netherlands is a front-runner in this respect: the Dutch Climate Agreement sets out a non-binding policy objective of 50% local ownership of renewable energy (e.g. PV and wind) on land by 2030. In a 2025 follow-up letter to Parliament, the Ministry of Climate acknowledges that energy communities still face several barriers, and lists several measures to address that, including providing a one-off grant totalling 7 million euros to regional community energy federations.

As the Commission highlights, the first step to building a national enabling framework for energy communities is to assess the barriers and potential for community energy nationally. Then, based on that, to build a national strategy for their development, with a specific quantitative goal and sub-metrics.

Ringfencing grid capacity (as Greece and Lithuania have done) is a good enabling measure. Crucially, energy communities should have access to viable and replicable business models (e.g., for local energy sharing coupled with storage, or selling energy at a fixed or predictable price through contracts for difference or feed-in premiums).

BUP: In several Member States, energy communities have been positioned as tools to address energy poverty. From a governance and financial perspective, what concrete mechanisms are required to ensure that vulnerable households can participate meaningfully, rather than remaining symbolic beneficiaries of community initiatives?

CV: The Directives require that Member States facilitate the participation of vulnerable households in energy communities, including in energy sharing schemes. With few exceptions (e.g., Greece), no Member State has actually done this. EU countries could set a minimum, legally binding target for vulnerable households in all energy sharing schemes (e.g., 5%) or incentivise the participation of such households in community energy projects with specific subsidies (as Italy has done with the European Regional Development Fund).

‘The Directives require that Member States facilitate the participation of vulnerable households in energy communities, including in energy sharing schemes. With few exceptions (e.g., Greece), no Member State has actually done this’

BUP: The upcoming Social Climate Plans under the Social Climate Fund are expected to mobilise substantial resources to address energy poverty and support vulnerable households in the energy transition. How can Member States effectively integrate energy communities into their Social Climate Plans, not only as beneficiaries of funding, but as structural delivery mechanisms for socially inclusive renewable energy, energy-sharing schemes and citizen-led renovations?

CV: As shown by REScoop.eu’s Social Climate Fund Tracker, several Member States have pledged over 370 million euros to support energy communities through to 2032. The main measure is to incentivise local energy sharing (including with the participation of municipalities) to provide free, or low-cost, electricity to households and micro-enterprises.

This is a first welcome step, but Member States can go further: they should incentivise citizen-led renovations (as outlined above), as well as community-led heating and cooling approaches. In Belgium, the Netherlands, and Denmark, cooperative-owned district heating projects offer significantly lower prices for heating to their members, as their main motive is not to squeeze out profit.

Member States should also set up national monitoring committees to oversee the implementation of their plans, as has been done in Poland and Luxembourg. Community energy representatives (e.g., a national federation of energy communities) should be part of these committees.