Community Cooperative: A New Legal Form for Enhancing Social Capital for the Development of Renewable Energy Communities in Italy

Anna Grignani, Michela Gozzellino, Alessandro Sciullo and Dario Padovan
Additional contact information
Anna Grignani: Department of Law, University of Turin, Lungo Dora Siena 100, 10124 Torino, Italy
Michela Gozzellino: Department of Culture, Politics and Society, University of Turin, Lungo Dora Siena 100, 10124 Torino, Italy
Alessandro Sciullo: Department of Culture, Politics and Society, University of Turin, Lungo Dora Siena 100, 10124 Torino, Italy
Dario Padovan: Department of Culture, Politics and Society, University of Turin, Lungo Dora Siena 100, 10124 Torino, Italy

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 21, 1-15

Abstract: This paper investigates the suitability of the community cooperatives (CC) model for the implementation of renewable energy communities (REC), as prescribed by art. 22 of EU Directive 2018/2001, and temporarily transposed into the Italian law by art. 42-bis of the Law Decree n. 162/2019. The hypothesis explored analyses the potential synergies between RECs and CC, based on their similarities. In particular, the article takes into consideration: the actors involved in both the RECs and the CCs; the geographical scope in which they develop, and the purposes that these two legal forms intended to achieve. Through a literature review and the analysis of EU, national and regional legislations, the paper aims at (1) clarifying the main features of RECs and the CCs in Italy; (2) exploring the main differences between CCs and the other legal forms of cooperative (e.g., mutual cooperative, cooperative benefit, etc.) and assessing the extent to which CCs are more suitable to implement renewable energy communities. As a result of the literature and regulatory review, several similarities between CCs and RECs can be detected, particularly, in reference to the strategic valorization of the cooperation between citizens and the local public entities. These similarities allow the authors to provisionally conclude that, in Italy, CCs may be adopted as a tool to implement RECs.

Keywords: community cooperative; energy community; energy transition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/21/7029/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/21/7029/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:21:p:7029-:d:665586

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().