Life COMET Policy Recommendations

Policy recommendations for strengthening community energy and national coalitions

This report presents the key findings and policy recommendations emerging from the three-year Life COMET project, based on the experience of seven countries: Croatia, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovenia.

The report examines the conditions needed for community energy to develop and mature, with a particular focus on the role of national coalitions. It highlights the gap that can remain between the formal recognition of energy communities and the practical conditions required for them to develop, including access to finance and technical support, energy sharing and grid access, administrative procedures, stakeholder cooperation and long-term organisational capacity; based on the Citizen Energy Package and European Commission Recommendation and Action Plan for energy communities.

FOCUS SEH MONTAZA (c) Timotej Vrtnik
FOCUS SEH MONTAZA (c) Timotej Vrtnik

The report is intended for:

  • national and European policy makers working on energy, climate and the energy transition;
  • public authorities, regulators and municipalities involved in implementing energy community policies;
  • national coalitions, federations and other secondary structures supporting energy communities;
  • organisations and stakeholders working to strengthen the community energy ecosystem.

What’s inside?

The report brings together the experience of the seven Life COMET countries and translates it into recommendations at both national and European level. It focuses in particular on five functions that national coalitions can play in turning an enabling framework into practical opportunities for energy communities:

  1. Strengthening policy dialogue and representation – recognising national coalitions as representative organisations and involving them in policy development, implementation and monitoring.
  2. Providing or coordinating support services – building on existing coalition capacities when developing One-Stop-Shops and Community Energy Service Points and helping communities navigate regulatory, technical and administrative challenges.
  3. Connecting the wider community energy ecosystem – facilitating structured cooperation between energy communities and public authorities, municipalities, regulators, network operators, energy agencies, financial institutions and other stakeholders.
  4. Facilitating access to finance – involving coalitions in the design of financing mechanisms and enabling them to help communities identify, access and combine available funding opportunities.
  5. Ensuring the long-term sustainability of national coalitions – providing stable, multiannual support so that the structures supporting community energy can maintain their representation, coordination and support functions beyond individual projects. 

The report also provides a country-by-country assessment of the state of play in Croatia, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovenia, before bringing the findings together into recommendations for European-level action.

At European level, the recommendations focus on policy dialogue and representation, support services and peer learning, and access to finance and continuity of support, including continued European support for the development and professionalisation of energy communities and their national coalitions beyond 2027.