Energy Communities and the Swedish Energy Transition : Insights from selected Swedish cases

Sammanfattning

In the context of increasing energy security pressures and national decarbonization targets, energy communities are increasingly discussed as mechanisms for supporting the energy transition by combining local energy production and consumption with new forms of participation and governance. In Sweden, however energy communities have developed in the absence of a formal legal definition and under relatively weak institutional support. This raises questions about how such initiatives emerge and operate in practice. Against this backdrop, this thesis examines how regulatory, institutional and social conditions shape the development of energy communities in Sweden. Drawing upon a case study of two energy communities in Sweden including qualitative interviews with actors involved in Swedish energy communities, this study analyzes how regulatory ambiguity, incumbent actors, and social dynamics influence the operation and perceived value of energy communities. The analysis shows that energy communities persist through flexible interpretations of existing rules, allowing energy communities to develop through informal arrangements and workarounds. This enables operation, but still carries uncertainty as well as introduces unintended consequences, particularly with regard to community visibility. While knowledge of and active participation in energy communities among the general public is limited, the findings show that formal participation is not a prerequisite for participants to derive material value from residing in an energy community.