Assessing the relevance of renewable energy resources availability for the existence of Energy Cooperatives in Europe

Abstract

Energy communities (ECs) are one of the key strategies of the European Union’s plan to increase adoption of renewable energy sources (RES). A better understanding of factors that facilitate the existence of energy cooperatives (ECoops), the most common organizational form of ECs, might contribute improving strategies to foster larger adoption of ECs. We perform an exploratory spatial data analysis to assess if RES availability and quality, quantified using four decades of ERA5 data, co-occur with the presence of ECoops across Europe. Results show a slight predominance of ECoops where wind resources are high and opposite results for solar resources. At the continental level, the spatial relation between ECoops and the proposed indicators is rather random but local clusters develop where RES’ availability is high.