This research sought to investigate existing frameworks for the motivation, structuring and implementation of Sustainable Energy Communities^†(SECs). The research consisted of the analysis of two relatively successful SECs in Denmark and one in Ireland in order to determine how their methodologies could be redeployed in other communities throughout Europe. There are several guidelines, frameworks and networks available to inform the development of sustainable energy communities including: the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland’s (SEAI) “Guidelines for a Sustainable Energy Community” [2], the “CONCERTO Guide to a Sustainable built Environment” [3], the Local Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI) [4] and the Covenant of Mayors [5]. As defined in several of these documents, a SEC is a community that draws a significant portion of its energy from sustainable energy sources. Building on this, the SEAI defines a SEC as a community “in which everyone comes together to create a sustainable energy system” [2]. There are a number of existing SECs in Europe including: the Isle of Eigg in Scotland, the Marstal community in Aero Island in Denmark, Sams0 Island in Denmark [6], the region of Güssing in Austria [7] and Cloughjordan eco-village in Ireland [8] (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Location map of some existing Sustainable Energy Communities

Several academics argue that the successful development of SECs is rooted in community acceptance and societal integration of sustainable energy technologies. While discussing models and incentives for community ownership of renewable energy projects, Walker [9] describes several barriers to the successful development of community energy. These barriers include legal conditions, economic and technical viability of projects and finally the need for extensive liaison with communities. Furthermore, Blake’s [10] discussion of the value-action gap highlights several barriers to action including, but not limited to: individuality, responsibility, practicality and the involvement of public and expert knowledge in the development process. Büscher and Sumpf’s [11] work also highlights the importance of fostering trust between stakeholders in the development process in order to achieve a more collaborative community energy project. This paper leverages previous studies analysing public perceptions and understandings of community renewable energy projects [12], [13] and builds on these bodies of research in the context of sustainable communities and the social aspect of energy integration and acceptance. The paper is structured as follows; firstly the context to the research and sustainable energy and communities is described. Next the methodology used for this initial fieldwork is outlined. Following this the findings are detailed including a discussion in relation to literature studied. Finally conclusions and recommendations for future work are proposed.

The European Parliament’s “Energy 2020” set Europe wide sustainable energy targets including: a 20% reduction in greenhouse gases, a 20% share of renewable energy and a 20% reduction in primary energy consumption by 2020 [14]. Although many countries in Europe are actively trying to achieve these targets, Denmark is leading the way in the race to increase their share of energy obtained from renewables. Historically, Denmark has been a pioneer in wind energy due to the co-operative nature of its wind energy provision. Denmark can provide useful lessons on the importance of financial incentives and ownership structures for community renewable energy ownership as well as the social, cultural and political aspects of SEC development. Mendonça et al. [15] describe how SEC development in Denmark was originally driven from the “bottom-up”, beginning with enthusiasts influencing the political process. This forced the government to provide incentives to encourage development of the renewable energy sector [14]. As a result, a combined “top-down” and “bottom-up” approach (which is still favoured by the EU today [3]) was created. In an attempt to continue their past successes, in 2012, the Danish government created very ambitious energy targets with the aim of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2020. Furthermore Denmark aims to have all their electricity and heating supply completely based on renewable energy by 2035 and have all energy consumption, including the transport sector, based on renewables by 2050 [16].

Meanwhile, in 2009, the Irish government released it’s first “National Renewable Energy Action Plan” [17] which described Ireland’s commitment to reach 40% renewable electricity and 12% renewable heating by 2020. In an effort to contribute towards achieving these targets the SEAI released their “Guidelines for a Sustainable Energy Community” in 2010 [2]. These guidelines implied that a move from a fossil fuel based economy to an economy sustained by renewable energy sources is a societal rather than a technological issue. In order to attend to this issue the SEAI set up the SEC Programme [18]. The vision of the SEC programme was to stimulate a national move towards sustainable energy practice through the creation of 6 exemplar SECs by 2015. However, Ireland has considerably more work to undertake in order to achieve its 2020 targets. Electricity generated from renewable energy reached 20.9% of gross electricity consumption in 2013 [19] highlighting how Ireland is facing a considerable challenge to meet its energy targets by 2020. In 2014, Ireland imported 85% of its energy requirements (ibid.) leaving the country vulnerable to fluctuations and instabilities in the price of energy resources. Furthermore, recent renewable energy development guidelines released by the National Economic and Social Council (NESC) in Ireland have outlined the increasing need for meaningful consultation in the development process of sustainable energy projects [20] to ensure more successful outcomes. Responding to these events, Irish policymakers released the government White Paper; “Ireland’s Transition to a Low Carbon Energy Future” in 2015 [21]. More consideration was afforded to the role of communities in Ireland’s energy policy than in preceding white papers [22] on Ireland’s sustainable energy future. The complexities of community engagement with the energy issue have been earmarked for considerable focus in the coming years [21]. In order to delve into these issues further, the following sections discuss the current state of SECs in Europe. Following this the barriers and enablers outlined in literature are presented and discussed.

Several studies describe the importance of the technological integration of sustainable energy systems [23]–[25] but there is a lack of knowledge on the enablers and barriers associated with the social issues surrounding the community acceptance of these technologies. As previously described, many academics have highlighted the importance of community engagement in community renewable energy projects. Walker and Devine-Wright’s [26] discussion of community energy highlights how the varied mix of interpretations around community energy create a complex social dimension to the concept. However little research is available on suitable techniques and frameworks for engaging with communities in order to increase their acceptance of renewable energy projects.

The drivers behind the development of SECs can often have the most influence over a community’s acceptance of the project. This can regularly create resentment towards the project early in the development process. According to J0rgensen et al. [6] the driving force behind the success of the SamsØ project was the community’s need for economic recovery (due to high unemployment rates). Although the reduction of greenhouse gases is often cited by policy makers as drivers for SECs, this is not generally the case at grass-roots level [10], [11]. It is important for SEC developers to discuss with communities the positives of energy autonomy and energy security [27] and ensure that the aims of SECs are aligned with the needs and wants of the communities involved. The early identification of the type of community involved will affect the ease of development of a SEC and can be useful information when designing a development strategy. Schweizer-Ries [28] identifies two types of communities: the “conscious community” (who still have to implement the realization) and the “realizing community” (who have a lack of public consciousness) stating that the methods used for the successful development of each SEC may be quite different. Determining the best method for dealing with different types of communities can lead to differing approaches during the early stages of a project.

In their work Rogers et al. [12] outline the barriers to the acceptance of SEC projects and reasons for members of the community’s reluctance to participate and support these projects in their areas. These include technical and economic factors and chiefly public opposition to wind farms. Furthermore research indicates that willingness to get involved in projects is often much lower than willingness to support it, possibly due to the “value-action gap” [10]. Value action gaps are the difference between what people say and what people do and arise because of individuals’ attitudes and the social and institutional context for change (ibid.). Studies in England have shown that although the aim of community energy projects may be to involve locals, regularly they are reluctant to take control and look to outsiders for guidance and leadership (ibid.). This reluctance to engage can often create barriers to the successful development of SECs and foster an environment where opposition to projects can thrive. The negative phenomenon of Not In My Back Yard (NIMBYism^*) and Locally Unwanted Land Use (LULU^†) can easily be taken advantage of by opposition parties when participation of locals is not present. Unfortunately, opposition to renewable energy projects is quantitatively different from support for projects and not just its binary opposite [29]. Often in cases of opposition to renewable energy projects, emotion is used by objectors to gain support while supporters challenge objections with facts [30]. This frequently leads to developers dismissing the concerns of communities as emotional, even though some of those concerns highlighted, although emotionally driven, may still count as “valid planning issues” (ibid.).

Furthermore, the insider/outsider distinctions inherent in small communities [29] often means that emotions involved in the planning process of a SEC are more powerful than the logic that it is assumed is applied to the planning process. The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process currently used in planning in Ireland clouds the ideal nature of the planning process as one devoid of emotion and operating solely on logic [30]. The EIA process operates on an “information-deficit model” and regularly gives opposition parties a clear platform to highlight their emotional ideas of a lack of justice and fairness in the project development (ibid.). This emotional aspect often leads to what Janis [31] described as “Groupthink” whereby groups norms that bolster (or harm) morale are created at the expense of critical thinking. One tool for overcoming NIMBYism due to LULU’s and the power of Groupthink, is to encourage communities to financially invest in part of the renewable energy project. Warren and McFadyen [13] undertook a comparison of public attitudes towards a community-owned wind-farm on the Isle of Gigha with attitudes towards several developer-owned wind-farms on the adjacent Kintyre peninsula. Their findings showed that the Gigha respondents were consistently more positive about wind power than were the Kintyre residents due to community ownership. Although the Gigha residents were more positive it was a difference of degree of positivity and not completely opposing views. The authors suggest that this may be due to communities gaining positive experiences of a wind-farm situated locally. It has been shown that attitudes to wind-farms have a longitudinal dimension, following a U-shaped curve over time (ibid.). When questioned about wind-farms, communities generally have positive initial responses, but these are often replaced by more negative appraisals when a local wind-farm is proposed. Fortunately, these negative appraisals are generally followed by a return to positive attitudes once the community has experienced the wind-farm. This method of developing communities’ understanding of sustainable energy leads to more acceptance of renewable energy developments and better support for projects in the future. Rogers et al. [12] conclude that a clearer framework and more standardised processes with demonstration of renewable energy technologies to raise awareness of community renewable projects are needed. In the next section, the nominated case study is outlined and the methodology used for this initial fieldwork study is described.

Building on the literature and existing SEC frameworks in Ireland, a set of themes were developed for analysis during this initial fieldwork. One framework analysed was the SEAI’s “Guidelines for a Sustainable Energy Community” [2]. These guidelines define a five step process to the development of SECs and are outlined in Figure 2 below.

Figure 2.

Summary of SEAI’s “Guidelines for a Sustainable Energy Community” [2]

As Figure 2 illustrates, the SEAI do not recommend community involvement until late in the development process, when the plans have already been finalised and construction of the project is to begin. As a result the level of community involvement was a key theme for analysis in this initial fieldwork study. The primary research in this initial fieldwork involved the undertaking of semi-structured interviews. Building on the literature several themes were identified for analysis in the initial fieldwork studies and are described in Table 1 below.

Questions for the semi-structured interviews were guided by the themes in Table 1. These interviews were undertaken with project managers from three successful SEC communities, two in Denmark and one in Ireland (Table 2). The study involved extensive semi-structured interviews with the managers of each of the SEC projects and comprehensive site visits of each project. The interviewees who took part in the study were the renewable energy project managers from the following: Marstal community in Aer0 Island, Denmark, Sams0 Island, Denmark and Cloughjordan eco-village in Ireland.

The following section reports on the response of the participants in the study in relation to a range of questions relating to the SEC development methodologies employed within their communities. These questions established the SEC development issues that were of particular importance to the participants. Several key themes emerged in the data and these are outlined in the following sections.

The semi-structured interview methodology used in this research was chosen in order to gather knowledge on the barriers and enablers to SEC development in two communities in Denmark and one in Ireland. There were similarities in the findings across all communities analysed and the major findings are outlined below:

• The driver for the project needs to be shared with the community and align itself with the wants and needs of the community involved;

• Public meetings are the best method for communicating with communities;

• It is important to use any existing organizational structures or networks where possible;

• The “Key influencer” is often the most important person in the development process and a determined proactive key influencer can mean the success or failure of a SEC project;

• Using mixed methods of financing for SEC projects was cited by all interviewees as the most successful method of financing projects. These should involve funding from government, community investment and bank loans;

• It is important to be aware that unexpected drawbacks to the project may occur and to make the community aware that these may happen as early in the project development as possible.

There is a need for future studies in Europe in terms of developing a framework for the introduction of SECs. The level of community involvement recommended in the SEAI’s “Guidelines for a Sustainable Energy Community” [2] are significantly later in the SEC development process than in the successful methodologies used by both Sams0 and Cloughjordan SECs (Figure 3).

Figure 3.

Comparison of SEAI’s “Guidelines for a Sustainable Energy Community” (ibid.) and the findings from this study of methodologies used in Samsø and Cloughjordan SECs

The findings from this initial fieldwork study would suggest that for a framework for the development of SECs to be successful, community involvement needs to play a larger role earlier in the process. Future work will involve the investigation of methodologies for achieving this. Exploring the following as future research strategies can facilitate the attainment of this goal:

• Assessing a strategy for embedding community involvement into SEC development process;

• Assessing the effect that the participation of communities and the key influencers have on the success or failure of SEC development methodologies.

Although only three semi-structured interviews and site-visits have been undertaken in this initial study, these were comprehensive in nature. The knowledge garnered from this study has led to initial themes being identified for future work, which will be built upon over the coming years.