Mapping the knowledge frontiers of community energy policy: A state-of-the-art review
Gabriel Owusu and
Xin Liang
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2025, vol. 222, issue C
Abstract:
Community energy (CE) development constitutes a key route to the path of clean energy. The purpose of this study is to explore the critical trends in the literature on community energy research, as well as to test for its urgency, in order to understand prominent patterns and their ramifications for future studies, stakeholders, and policymakers. For this study, 924 journal articles obtained from the Web of Science (WoS) database were analyzed through bibliometric software, and a rigorous content analysis was carried out on relevant papers. Further analysis was done through the lens of market failure to examine externalities as a need for community energy transition. The results revealed that 1) community energy has the potential to address market externalities caused by fossil fuel consumption; 2) CE policy research is gaining increasing popularity with the most published articles (135) recorded in 2021; 3) Europe dominates research on CE policies, with England, the Netherlands, and Germany emerging as the top three; 4) in addition to major themes, “energy transition” (Av. Pub. Year: 2020.24) “energy democracy” (Av. Pub. Year: 2020.42), “energy sharing” (Av. Pub. Year: 2021.70), and “energy community” (Av. pub. year: 2021.84) have been the most popular terms in recent studies; 5) Grassroots Innovation (87 members), Extended Model (86 members), Energy Cooperative (82 members), among others, constitute the most dominant themes. The results of this study provide insights and directions for both researchers and policymakers in the areas of community energy and energy transition.
Keywords: Bibliometric analysis; Climate change; Community energy; Market failure; Renewable energy; Sustainability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:rensus:v:222:y:2025:i:c:s1364032125006410
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DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2025.115968
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