Authors:  Niklavs Tamanis, Veronica Saletti, Marco Costa, Marina Fernández-Campoamor – EUSEW  Young Energy Ambassadors

Citizens still struggle to join Europe’s clean energy transition. This article tests two practical approaches that turn hosts into partners: energy communities, where citizens co-own and share power, and community-benefit clauses, which distribute value locally. We, Young Energy Ambassadors, show how targeted One-Stop Shops (OSS), Renewable Energy Sources (RES)-ID, and interoperability among other solutions could make these mechanisms work more effectively, fairly, and at scale.

Across the EU, households still struggle to engage in energy markets. Awareness of tangible gains is low, and trust in safeguards from extractive corporations is limited. Although credible mechanisms exist, their implementation remains complex, uneven, and inaccessible.

EU momentum, Citizens Energy Package, & Our YEA inputs

The Citizens Energy Package, building on the Clean Energy Package and the 2025 Action Plan for Affordable Energy, aims to empower consumers and enable energy sharing. Our contribution to the public consultation as Young Energy Ambassadors (YEA) focused on practical delivery, through such solutions as development of targeted OSS, recognition of youth/renters as a vulnerable group, creation of audience-specific outreach, and improvements to two key levers for citizen participation in energy markets: energy communities and community-benefit clauses. In this article, we focus on the latter two.

Two practical levers

Energy Communities (EComms)

Despite clear EU direction for energy community initiatives, barriers persist: REC definition and implementation differs widely across Member States; low awareness; perceived high effort from practitioners involved in the REC creation process; complex bureaucratic set-up and operations; limited benefits for students, young workers, and low-income renters; costly, non-interoperable metering/platforms; and risks of capture by large market actors.

Our EComms Solutions

To make Energy Communities (EComms) easier to start, join, and manage, we propose a set of complementary solutions that address both organisational and technical barriers.

Primarily, energy community-focused One-Stop Shops (OSS) would act as single-entry hubs where citizens, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and local authorities can access ready-to-use documentation (statutes, by-laws, and communication templates), energy-sharing evaluations, and clear guidance on data management and regulatory steps, as well as information on how to make their homes more energy efficient.

Young people should receive formal recognition as a vulnerable group within national social frameworks

Moreover, young people, especially those renting apartments as students or early-career professionals, should receive formal recognition as a vulnerable group within national social frameworks. This would enable them to access dedicated benefits and support schemes, like other vulnerable groups, helping to remove structural barriers to their participation and ensuring that energy communities become an inclusive, rather than niche, option.

Then, a dedicated civil-service track for energy communities would also enable young professionals to gain first-hand experience while supporting communities with day-to-day management and citizen engagement activities that are otherwise costly if fully outsourced to external experts. Building on emerging examples from France and Italy, these hubs would also connect communities to grants, soft loans, and local financial partners, making investment more accessible and de-risking early-stage initiatives.

Finally, to simplify participation from a technical and bureaucratic point of view, we propose a Renewable Energy System Identifier (RES-ID): a standardised and recognized technical and administrative data set that citizens and SMEs can fill in once and then reuse across different national portals procedures, such as permit applications, grid-connection requests, EComms affiliation, and incentive schemes requests. Such a tool would store all the renewable energy systems technical data required by different national authorities and retrieve it, when necessary, at each access point, similarly to the Italian SPID or dutch DigID, personal digital identity systems.

EComms Case Studies

1) In Alto Vicentino (Italy), 16 municipalities set up an energy community, added 650 kW of photovoltaics on public buildings, made accessible national grants (up to 40% of the initial investment) for residents and small firms, and a youth team is taking it forward, organizing a buying club for building energy retrofit.

Policy takeaway: back clusters of neighbouring municipalities building from existing energy info points, keep supporting public-building solar installation as “lead by example” lever, and encourage young professionals to actively engage with local communities via dedicated support grants, civil service specific paths, and learning opportunities.

2) The Hyperion Energy Community in Athens (Greece), founded in 2020 and mainly composed of families and NGOs, aims to evolve into an ESCO to support the renovation of apartments in multi-unit residential buildings. The project operates in several neighbourhoods of the capital, aiming to ensure gender balance and representation of diverse social groups among its 123 members.

Policy takeaway: Use the Citizen Energy Community (CEC) regulatory framework to create new, citizen-led business structures (ESCOs) to accelerate urban energy renovation in multi-unit buildings, ensuring broad social representation.

3) Energie Samen Rivierenland (The Netherlands): The neighbourhood association in Rivierenland, founded in 1936 and citizen-led, is revitalizing its dated housing stock (60% built before 1950) through a co-design process for interventions. The project covers 133 dwellings, with a specific focus on energy poverty and elderly residents.

Policy takeaway: Leverage existing neighbourhood associations with a long history of community trust to promote the co-design of renovation interventions, focusing specifically on the most vulnerable groups.

4) Renoss (Italy): it is the network of One Stop Shops dedicated to Renewable Energy Communities, run by public local energy agencies backed by the Environmental Ministry. It covers the whole national territory with at least one OSS per region, aligned with the Energy Performance in Building Directive. Each agency supports energy communities via dedicated services which spans from information to grant applications, feasibility studies, and member engagement campaigns.

Policy takeaway: support cluster organizations of public-led OSS to offer a structured and homogeneous technical assistance approach across Europe

Community-benefit clauses

While energy communities are a promising and innovative concept with clear environmental benefits, they don’t always address the social equity concerns from renewable energy projects, such as externalised siting costs. This is why the introduction of benefit-sharing mechanisms, such as community funds and shared equity ownership, is also building momentum among Member States.

Still, progress is uneven: many schemes are complex, opaque, and engage residents too late; youth, renters, and other underrepresented groups are barely reached; participation stays low, and legitimacy suffers. As Young Energy Ambassadors, we thus argue that just transition must go beyond compensation to create shared community value, especially where skills and alternative jobs are scarce.

Our community-benefit Solutions

To make renewable energy projects fairer and more inclusive, national governments can set out simple rules to ensure that local communities share in the benefits.

For example, benefit criteria can be built directly into auction schemes, with clear guidance on eligible uses such as local energy relief or community facilities. A “one-stop shop” (OSS) can then help communities check who qualifies, access funds or compensation, and connect to training or re-skilling opportunities.

Furthermore, governments could develop risk-sharing models that make it easier for low-income households to take part in projects without bearing financial losses.

Finally, targeted communication through youth groups, schools, community centres, and local media can raise awareness, using an EU-adapted model that considers both income and housing conditions.

Community-benefit case studies

We once again explored two national models in detail to see what fair community value-sharing can look like.

1) In Ireland’s RESS auctions, every supported project pays EUR 2/MWh into a local Community Benefit Fund and appears on a national SEAI register with guidance on eligible uses – from energy-poverty relief to community facilities. There’s also a community-led auction lane for locally developed projects.

Policy takeaway: set a fixed €/MWh payment into a local fund, keep a public register and simple annual reporting, and retain a community-led track so locals can lead and access the value.

2) Denmark’s VE-loven goes further by pairing money with ownership and protection. Developers of new onshore wind must offer 20% local shares (within 4.5 km) on equal terms, compensate any loss of property value, and pay into a Green Scheme for local amenities.

Policy takeaway: make it a package – local shares, property compensation, and a community fund – to align incentives and build durable acceptance.

Why does all of this matters

Coupling Ecomms and Community-Benefit mechanisms with functional OSS, RES-ID, interoperability, and guardrails, among other improvements, builds trust, accelerates their deployment, improves affordability, and broadens participation – especially for youth, renters, and other vulnerable groups.

As the EU’s modern citizen energy participation transitions from a consultation phase, equitable codification of mechanisms must follow: targeted OSS must be scaled, trusted tools must be standardised across the MS, mainstream risk-sharing principles must be integrated, and community-benefits must provide tangible value beyond mere compensation.

The European Commission already provides a foundation for this through tools such as the Energy Communities Facility and the Citizen-led Renovation Initiative, which help local actors access guidance, finance, and capacity-building. In parallel, EU-wide networks like REScoop.eu support renewable energy cooperatives and peer learning across Member States.

Building on and scaling these efforts will be essential to ensure our future citizens become genuine partners in Europe’s renewable energy build-out.

This opinion editorial is produced in co-operation with the European Sustainable Energy Week 2026. See ec.europa.eu/eusew for open calls.

Disclaimer: This article is a contribution from a partner. All rights reserved.

Neither the European Commission nor any person acting on behalf of the Commission is responsible for the use that might be made of the information in the article. The opinions expressed are those of the author(s) only and should not be considered as representative of the European Commission’s official position.