Renewable energy communities are grassroots initiatives that invest in ‘clean energy’ in order to meet consumption needs and environmental goals and thereby – often unwittingly – conduce to the spread of renewables. Our aim in the present study is to explore the potential of renewable energy communities in the Netherlands, as social niches, to contribute to transitions in the energy system. To do so, we propose three proxies for measuring the transition potential of social niches, based on proxies for technological innovations derived from the literature. In addition, we reinterpret the notion of niches and the way transition occurs by arguing that niches are complex systems in which both technological and social innovations develop simultaneously and that during a transition entire niches link up with the regime. Furthermore, we make a distinction between internally and externally oriented niches based on their orientation and application focus. We use a comparative case study analysis complemented by a systematic literature and documentary review to show that these communities are already changing the Dutch energy system, by connecting to regime actors. Their further advancement depends on strengthening their links to established actors, but also on providing a favorable regulatory framework

Renewable energy communities have multiplied the last years in many countries, even in contexts that the structural conditions are not favorable. The paper analyses individual motivations for partaking in local renewable projects and generating energy jointly in an investment community, in order to inform policy debates on how to support such communities. To do so, we applied a socio-psychological approach for studying renewable energy communities in Germany and the Netherlands. Our results show that mainly gain (such as decreasing energy costs) and normative (such as addressing climate change) considerations played a role in the decision, but in the background hedonic motivations were also present, such as having fun and integrating in a community. Each of the groups examined emerged in already existing strong communities, where trust was relatively high, which seems to be an important condition for the realization of local energy projects. Consequently, we argue that tailor-made incentives addressing the different types of motivations can be more effective for the support and spread of renewable energy communities

Transition to a sustainable future requires not only technical but also societal changes, including changes in behavioral patterns and consumer roles. Renewable energy communities embody such changes: they are mainly residential communities that break with their passive consumer role and produce energy from renewable sources in order to meet primarily local needs. Although the number of these communities has increased remarkably in the last decade in many Western countries, as has the academic attention paid to them, we still have limited knowledge on how they are formed and operate. It is unclear how they get their members to work collectively on a voluntary basis for a common goal; that is, energy production at the local level, and overcome the challenge of free-riding. This article seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the institutional and social context in which these communities operate, as well as of the way they are created and function. Therefore, the research question addressed is: What factors influence renewable energy communities’ formation and organization? In particular, the interest is in strategies for group formation, task distribution, collective action, communication, decision making, and problem-solving. This paper addresses the research question through a comparative assessment of case studies in Germany and the Netherlands. It analyzes different communities—of distinct sizes, location, and using various technologies—and assesses the commonalities between them and their general practices that led to the successful project implementation. The results show that, contrary to Olson’s expectation about voluntary collective action, renewable energy communities can realize their goals based on the work of only a few volunteers who develop the project without receiving any additional reward and who also accept free-riding. However, the larger the community’s size and the complexity of the project, the more likely it is that they need to formally organize the procedure or count on external support.

Participation has been touted as a critical instrument for both citizen empowerment and responsibility-sharing in sustainability. In architecture, participation allows for the progression of green building to sustainable habitation that integrates environmental, economic, and social dimensions. However, participation in practice rarely delegates meaningful decisions to marginalized groups and is mostly a one-sided process. This study seeks to investigate which factors of the participatory method afford both empowerment and behavioral change to a sustainable lifestyle in low-income groups. To do so, a case study of designing a social housing estate in Hungary is presented, where participatory design was used to codevelop a building that considers and adjusts to the sustainable lifestyle envisioned by the future residents. A coding engine based on the concept of pattern languages was developed that places conditions and experience of everyday activities at the center of design, translating them to spatial features. As a result, a focus group of social housing tenants and cohousing experts were able to define explicit shared spaces, allocate square meters to them, and articulate legible design criteria. Of the early-stage design decisions, 45% were made with or by the participants, and the bilateral process made it possible to convince the tenants to adopt a more sustainable habitation format.