Between efficiency and democracy: Explaining support and resistance towards energy transition and prosumer solutions in Polish and Czech housing cooperatives

Jan Frankowski, Joanna Mazurkiewicz, Sona Stará, Aleksandra Prusak, Wojciech Bełch, Michal Nesládek, Tomáš Vácha and Krzysztof Niedziałkowski
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Karol Rafał Madon

No 05/2025, IBS Working Papers from Instytut Badan Strukturalnych

Abstract: The paper examines attitudes and perceptions of collective energy investments in multi-family buildings, applying an institutional framework and based on 60 interviews with key policy stakeholders and housing cooperative representatives in Poland and the Czechia. Housing cooperatives are well-positioned to implement renewable energy technologies as top-down, techno-economic investments focused on reducing energy costs. However, such initiatives rarely evolve into participatory or resident-driven models. Energy democratisation is limited by institutional barriers, regulatory and financial instability, and the erosion of local community structures due to ongoing socio-demographic shifts. Where energy transition occurs, it tends to follow a centralised, efficiency-oriented logic, with limited resident engagement. Attempts at prosumer models highlight major legal, policy, and cultural challenges to developing energy communities in this context.

Keywords: housing cooperatives; energy transition; institutional theory; Central Europe (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D02 O18 Q48 R31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 28 pages
Date: 2025-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ain and nep-eec
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