In its most recent Energy Union package, the European Union puts citizens at the core of the clean energy transitions. Beyond policy, disruptive innovations in energy sectors are challenging the traditional business model of large energy utilities. One such disruptive, social innovation is the emergence of new clean energy communities (“newcomers”). The possible benefits of these “newcomers” for their members and for society at large are still emerging and their potential to support the goals of the Energy Union is unclear.

To meet the challenge of decarbonisation European energy systems have to change. New clean energy communities provide much needed social innovation. They:

• combine the benefits of community energy such as participation and democratic decision-making processes with
• the benefits of self-sustained, revenue-generating business models.

These have the potential to be scaled up and broaden the target group of EU citizens that actively participate in the clean energy transitions.

Visualisation of the NEWCOMERS focus: new clean energy community business models

The mission of the NEWCOMERS project includes:

There are six partner countries involved in the NEWCOMERS project. They encompass a range of characteristics associated with the emergence and diffusion of distributed generation and energy communities:

The NEWCOMERS project takes these differences into account in the comparative analysis of national settings. They will be compared also to the settings in other countries, such as France, Spain, Norway, Canada and the US.