Towards Inclusive Energy Transition: an Energy-Economic Assessment Framework for Small Renewable Energy Community Initiatives in the Italian Context

In the framework of the global shift towards sustainable energy practices, Renewable Energy Communities (RECs) have emerged as potential contributor for enhancing the efficiency of energy production, distribution and consumption at local level. However, while the concept of REC originally involves an environmental and social scope, the existing legislative framework poses significant challenges for the development of RECs by small and unstructured citizen associations. In this framework, the present study proposes a simplified model for estimating residential electricity demand and electricity production potential from PV systems and defines a comprehensive method for assessing energy and economic performances of RECs. The approach is tested on a real case study in Northern Italy, to ensure accuracy, reliability and replicability and to evaluate different REC composition and configuration scenarios, in terms of prosumers-consumers and production-consumption balance. The study highlights the need to address regulatory disparities between large entities and small, unstructured citizen associations providing accessible tools to estimate costs and revenues.