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The effects of climate change are already impacting people’s quality of life worldwide. Evidence highlights the urgency in action to counteract this on-going process. Europe aims at fostering the green transition becoming climate neutral by 2050. The envisioned pathway encompasses an overhaul of the energy system including an increase in renewable energy production and end-user energy efficiency. The EU further recognizes the fundamental role of citizens and communities in addressing an effective transition. Within this framework, energy communities (EC) and peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading are emerging as new opportunities for boosting green technologies in renewable energy and the smart grid sector, and for rising citizens’ awareness of the theme. However, the implementation of P2P ECs in Europe entails complex legal challenges that cannot be solved only through sector-specific regulation. This open letter critically presents the experience gained in the H2020 NRG2peers project about the knowledge advancement in the regulatory context of the project pilot sites. These are located in four EU ecosystems (from innovators to laggards) that are: the Netherlands, Spain, Slovenia, and Italy. Each EC involved in the NRG2peers project is thus facing different challenges related to its specific socio-economic condition and energy market framework. These barriers need to be overcome and new tools will be delivered during the NRG2peers project. Moving from the lessons learnt at the pilot sites, both roadmaps at the regulatory level and an advisory app are under development to support the uptake of the next generation of European peer-to-peer Energy Communities.

Energy communities organise collective and citizen-driven energy actions that will help pave the way for a clean energy transition, while moving citizens to the forefront. The energy market is rapidly transforming and so is the role of the consumer. Yesterday’s passive consumers become central actors in today’s energy markets. Today, as prosumers, citizens can benefit from their generation, consumption, and storage capabilities. Moreover, by supporting social engagement and citizen participation, energy communities can help provide flexibility to the electricity system through demand response, storage, and peer-to-peer energy exchange. Based on the collective debate from nine H2020 running projects (Renaissance, COMETS, Sender, eCREW, Lightness, ReDream, HESTIA, UP-STAIRS and NRG2peers), several challenges and key lessons learned can be identified for just social engagement. These challenges and lessons are relevant for the present and future development of EU energy communities.

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