With Europeans heading to the polls in two weeks to elect a new EU Parliament, right-wing forces seem set to gain seats. This shift would partly reflect one that has already happened at national level in various European countries, from Italy to France, Sweden, and Portugal, where the far right has leveraged social and economic insecurity to gain consensus.  

Far-right parties offer false solutions, but the anxieties they address are legitimate. Take the “green backlash” against climate policies, for example. The green transition is unfolding at breakneck speed across Europe: 2023 saw a record rise in wind and solar generation, leading to a structural decline in gas and coal. This is a huge boost to the EU’s economy: 100 billion euros have been saved due to renewable energy additions between 2021 and 2023. Yet, do citizens see the benefits of this revolution in their daily lives?  

Look at Spain and Greece, for example. Both countries have rapidly scaled up renewable energy production over the past years. However, industrial-scale projects, often installed in rural areas, where land is abundant and cheap, tend to exclude local communities. Rural communities are already under pressure, with climate impacts threatening livelihoods and entire regions experiencing depopulation as (young) people flock en masse to cities in search of economic opportunities. If they don’t reap the benefits of the green agenda, it is only logical that they start perceiving the renewable energy transition as an imposition by urban elites. How do we square this circle? 

Energy communities may offer a way out of this deadlock. As groups of actors collaboratively developing local renewable energy projects (energy sharing, electric mobility, housing renovations, and more), their primary purpose is to provide socio-environmental benefits, such as tackling energy poverty and climate change, and not to generate profit. 

By offering free shares of local collective self-consumption projects to energy-vulnerable households, or by educating people about energy savings, energy communities help ensure that every member of the local community has access to cheap, clean energy. Community energy projects provide up to 8 times more economic benefits to local economies than private, for-profit renewable projects. Moreover, there are tens of examples from various European countries of how energy communities promote intersectional social inclusion, cutting across lines of class, gender, and ethnicity.  

The EU and member states must ensure that all citizens share the benefits of the green transition, and that no one is left behind.

Community energy has a rich history in Europe, from community-owned electricity grids in Germany in the early twentieth century to the first cooperative wind parks in Denmark in the 1970s. Today, REScoop.eu, the European Federation of Citizen Energy Cooperatives, boasts over 2250 cooperative members, representing over 2 million EU citizens. 

Change and innovation 

Energy communities are not just about social innovation. With recent revisions to the EU Renewable Energy, Energy Efficiency, and Energy Performance of Buildings Directives, they are encouraged to take up even more activities in the energy market, including for example offshore wind energy and citizen-led energy renovations. In Ioannina, a city in northwestern Greece, the first urban community agri-photovoltaic project is already being planned, and a similar one will be carried out in Skopje, the capital of North Macedonia. The project consists of an urban garden that will combine the production of vegetables and clean energy from special photovoltaic panels. The pilot will be coordinated by the local energy community CommonEn, and the design will be participatory.  

In Spain, in the municipality of Aberasturi (Basque Country), a community-led heating network is being implemented, which is powered by residues from cereal production and prunings from the maintenance of the municipality’s forests, with the potential to supply hot water and heating to 60 houses. This bottom-up, sustainable heating project will now replace the current consumption of diesel and propane. 

As argued in the REScoop.eu Manifesto, published ahead of the EU elections, EU Governments should recognise – and reward – this dual social and technological innovation of energy communities. Encouragingly, both Spain and Greece have allocated hundreds of millions of euros from their Recovery and Resilience and Cohesion funds to support energy communities – with social strings attached: beneficiary projects should tackle energy poverty.  

An inclusive transition 

Yet, public funds are often absorbed by large companies. Even when such companies promote local energy-sharing projects, the social component of energy communities is still absent: local ownership, democratic participation, sharing of benefits. The energy transition advances, but the profits keep accruing to a select few.  

The ongoing drive to invest in Europe’s industry and increase competitiveness should not be seen as mutually exclusive with social inclusion. Quite the contrary: small and medium-sized enterprises and social and solidarity economy actors form the backbone of the EU’s economy, sustaining local communities, and promoting local innovation. The EU and member states must ensure that all citizens share the benefits of the green transition, and that no one is left behind. Historically, Spain and Greece have been at the periphery of the EU – both literally and metaphorically. This has led to (economic) marginalisation, but has also paved the way for alternative ways of community-based organising and social innovation to emerge. From community-led solar energy projects in abandoned coal mines in northern Greece, to the community rooftop solar revolution in many Spanish cities, energy communities are heralding a new era of inclusive socio-technical innovation.  

By ensuring EU-level political and economic support for these initiatives, progressive forces in the new European Parliament can bring the “just transition” closer to reality, and start to turn the tide against the rising far right.