Europe's Green Deal aims to put citizens at the heart of the energy transition by ensuring fairness and inclusiveness. This follows the Clean Energy for All Europeans legislative package (CEP), which acknowledges ‘active customers’, ‘renewables self-consumers’, ‘renewable energy communities’ (RECs), and ‘citizens energy communities’ (CECs) as distinct market actors in the energy transition. The second generation EU legislation for energy communities, including the REPowerEU Package, the Fit for 55 Package and the revised Electricity Market Design recognize the important role energy communities can play in a lot of different activities in the market, including energy sharing and their contribution to larger projects, such as offshore wind projects.

In addition to promoting equality and a level playing field in the Internal Energy Market (IEM) at the EU level, Member States also need to ensure that their national regulations on planning and mapping of renewables contribute towards the delivery of the Green Deal and that local actors, including energy communities, have a fair chance to develop their projects, including in renewables acceleration areas. The Commission should, therefore, guide Member States so they can comply with their legal requirements under the CEP and specifically the revised Renewables Directive.

This position paper shares REScoop.eu’s response to the call for evidence on renewables acceleration areas.