The current paper contributes to the literature on community renewable energy by considering two projects developed in the north-west of Italy, in the Piedmont region. Community renewable energy is increasingly regarded by academic literature and policy discourse as crucial to ensure a socially and environmentally just energy transition. In spite of the growing diffusion of community renewable energy projects, there is still a lack of theoretically informed analyses. Our article tries to address this gap by combining two theoretical perspectives: the multilevel perspective and the socio-technical imaginaries approach. Applying the first perspective helps reconstruct the context and circumstances that have permitted the Piedmont’s energy community projects to emerge. Particular attention is given to the windows of opportunity created by the Regional Law 12/2018, which acknowledged the establishment of energy communities for the first time in Italy. The socio-technical imaginaries perspective allows the identification of collective ideas and meanings that emerge when individuals or groups promote a socio-technical innovation. Based on this analysis, three main future changes are associated with community renewable energy: an integral ecology approach, a stronger sense of community, and a local development opportunity for rural areas characterised by depopulation, a low employment rate, and high energy demand.

This work provides an analysis of the structure and transformations of the official political debate over immigration control within the Italian political elite over the last three decades. Through a close historical reading of the Italian political scene based primarily on parliamentary debates, this article charts the key policy frames articulated in different periods of Italian immigration history in relation to the nature of the immigration control problem (cognitive dimension) and the suggested policy solutions (normative dimension). Moreover, it highlights the various factors – from party competition and political ideologies to the pressure of interest groups, the characteristics of national political institutions and the normative pressure from Europe and European institutions – that have influenced immigration policy frames and have interacted with them in shaping policy goals.

Energy communities are integral to achieving the European goal of carbon neutrality by 2050. While these communities are currently being emphasized as strictly place-based, with some states interpreting RED II’s proximity criterion stringently, our research offers a contrasting perspective: We argue that a sole focus on geographical proximity fails to capture the full contributions of energy community projects, especially those that function as communities of interest rather than merely as communities of place. In order to support this perspective, our study analyses data from 5402 responses and 31 semi-structured interviews from two main energy cooperatives: Ecopower in Flanders, Belgium, and ènostra in Italy, in both of which, members are not confined by geographical boundaries and are instead united by shared energy-related interests.Our findings indicate that these two organizations are pivotal to driving the European energy transition. The organizations effectively rally their members around a common identity, thereby fostering new norms, practices, and forms of social capital as well as offering a shield against the market’s prevailing logic. This observation becomes even clearer when considering the fact that the cooperatives have reached a significant level of business maturity, with Ecopower utilizing more resources for including and empowering participants and territories. Our research underscores the importance of re-evaluating the role of geographical proximity in energy policies and highlights the potential that interest-based cooperatives have when it comes to advancing sustainable energy initiatives across various geographical scales.

Most institutions and industrial actors believe that district heating infrastructure can play a key role in accelerating the transition to low-carbon energy systems. In this article we test this belief in Italy, starting from a census of all existing plants, subdivided by sources of supply and business organization models. We isolate two types of district heating (urban and rural) and find that they are different with respect to their approaches to energy transition. In rural areas, networks constitute systems that can empower the local techno-institutional complex to achieve a technological leap. Set in a pre-existing social network, district heating reinforces a sense of community and facilitates the involvement of various local players in a collective project. In the case of biomass, we are faced with local systems that have almost completed the transition with regard to the production of thermal and sometimes electric energy. In urban areas, on the other hand, networks represent functional devices for the stabilization of the techno-institutional complex. They allow cities to work on the circularity of some economies, generating added value from the same factors of production. The discrepancy between urban and rural contexts thus highlights the need to consider the ambivalence of district heating technology.

Renewable energy cooperatives (RECs) play a pivotal role in advancing a new energy paradigm that prioritizes equity and inclusivity. However, there is often ambiguity regarding their potential since their core principle of functioning revolves around serving the mutual interests of their members by providing energy services rather than addressing general- interest missions. Moreover, RECs still operate as businesses that are economically viable and appealing, thereby attracting the influence of financial interests. In this context, balancing the tripartite spectrum of interests, namely capital, mutual, and general, can be complex. To gain a deeper understanding, we conducted a survey among 5402 members of two RECs, namely Ecopower in Belgium and ènostra in Italy, complemented by 20 semi-structured interviews. Our findings indicate that members have mixed feelings about assuming general- interest missions, such as fighting against energy poverty, which do not always align with those of their boards. We also note significant differences between the two RECs, which can be attributed to the distinct contexts in which they operate and their varying stages of maturity. We conclude by discussing the importance of scaling up and the need to adopt a more collaborative approach between the public and third sector to address the complexities of social issues.

This study focused on new pressures on water resources in relation to the production of renewable energy in Italy. In particular, I considered the conflicts that have emerged in the Trentino region around mini-hydroelectric power production. Literature critiquing the Not In My Backyard (NIMBY) approach provided the basis for analyzing the characteristics of this opposition movement. I argue that the anti-mini-hydro movements only partially challenge the NIMBY definition. At the discursive level, such mobilizations articulate a broader discourse opposing mini-hydroelectric production as a climate change mitigation strategy and promoting a vision of the river as biodiversity to be protected. Moreover, at the sociospatial level, the anti-mini-hydro movements reveal an ability to forge alliances among different sectors of broader society. However, no broader discourse is articulated on the energy transition. The anti-mini-hydro movement can therefore be characterized as a form of “localist environmentalism” combining place attachment and nature conservation.