Sustainable rural development (SRD) is an essential component of sustainable development on a global scale. Community Renewable Energy (CRE) has been advocated as a step forward in the progress towards SRD. While Northern European countries are experiencing a high development of CRE, Southern European countries lag behind. Considering entrepreneurship and renewable energy technologies (RET) as two fundamental components of CRE, through a systematic literature review this study identifies the antecedents or conditioning factors of entrepreneurship and RET exploitation in rural areas of developed countries, understanding that these same antecedents condition the development of CRE in these countries. The identified factors are organized around five capital spheres: economic, human, social, physical and natural. Given that these five spheres are not watertight compartments, but rather that their limits are diffuse and there are multiple interactions between them, we try to highlight their interrelationships through System Thinking based on the design of causal loop diagrams. The results can help policy makers and CRE projects’ promoters in the design of effective policies and strategies to foster the development of CRE in rural areas of developed countries.

Las comunidades energéticas renovables (CER) se han postulado en la literatura académica como una potencial fuente de oportunidades para el desarrollo rural sostenible. Las nuevas líneas estratégicas del Gobierno de la nación apuntan a que podrían empezar a incentivarse de un modo más contundente, haciendo necesario el análisis de los condicionantes de la predisposición a participar y/o invertir en este tipo de iniciativas. Con base en la información recogida a través de una encuesta en un pequeño pueblo de Galicia, analizamos mediante técnicas cuantitativas (análisis de componentes principales y de regresión múltiple) las características sociodemográficas y sociopsicológicas que determinan la predisposición a participar y/o invertir en una CER rural. Los resultados revelan que el género, el nivel de renta y un factor de capital social relacionado con la confianza y la cooperación resultan significativos. Estos resultados nos permiten formular conclusiones y recomendaciones para investigadores, promotores y legisladores.

Community renewable energy has been acknowledged as a necessary step in the transition toward a sustainable energy system. It can contribute to the achievement of energy autonomy by communities. In rural settings, it can be a driver of sustainable rural development. And it can be seen as a specific contribution to circular economy from the energy sector. The willingness to invest in community renewable energy has received some attention in previous research but needs further investigation at the local rural scale through quantitative approaches. Based on a survey in a small Galician village, this study contributes to the filling of this gap. The willingness to invest of its inhabitants is analyzed in relation to alternative financial, sociodemographic and sociopsychological features. Survey results show the heterogeneity of individual attitudes and concerns that condition the willingness to invest in rural community renewable energy and the different perceptions of risk and return related to these projects. Cluster analysis allows identifying four different investor profiles (skeptics, financial illiterate, enthusiasts, yield investors). These should be accounted for by project promoters and policymakers when designing incentives and strategies to foster community renewable energy in rural settings.

<abstract> <p>Rural areas are essential to moving towards the necessary sustainable energy transition and climate change mitigation through renewable energy (RE) technologies. However, RE planning and decision-making in rural locations have not been developed to date with a focus on the local level and accompanied by a careful and thorough assessment of the simultaneous availability of alternative RE sources in a specific territory. Quite differently, RE investments in rural locations have been primarily driven by the interests of large power utilities to exploit a particular RE source, with benefits escaping from the rural economies to end up in the income statements of those large corporations. There is a need to approach RE planning at the municipal scale considering the availability of alternative RE sources. This study suggests the development of a rural RE potential index that could help in the identification of appropriate locations for the implementation of hybrid renewable energy systems (HRESs). The construction of a composite indicator to measure rural RE potential is exemplified through a case study that deals with ten indicators in the context of Galician rural municipalities, involving different RE potentials and some technical or regulatory constraints. Equal weighting and Principal Component Analysis are considered alternative methods for the index construction. Municipalities are the relevant local decision level where energy policy should be focused in order to diversify both the RE mix and the investor base. The proposed index could be the basis for future analyses aimed at optimizing the design and implementation of HRESs in rural environments at a local-regional-national scale.</p> </abstract>