Financing energy communities: Actors, instruments, builders, and ESG ecosystem expectations in Italy

Maksym Koltunov, Luca Tricarico and Adriano Bisello

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: This paper examines the financing of energy communities in Italy, focusing on the roles of key actors, financial instruments, and project builders. It also analyses the economic and ESG impacts that financing actors expect from energy communities. These expectations are shaped by Italy's progressive regulatory framework, which has already supported more than 422 energy communities. We conducted 19 semi-structured interviews with stakeholders involved in financing and building energy communities, supplemented by extensive desk research. Our descriptive analysis identified the financing instruments used by different actors and their recipients both within and beyond the ECs. Thematic analysis highlights the crucial role of municipalities and technical partners in successful project implementation, though municipalities often face significant challenges. Mixed funding, a balanced energy production-consumption ratio, and scalable installations are essential to attract private investment; however, social fund regulations substantially prolong payback periods. Therefore, private actors are primarily driven by indirect economic (e.g., cross-selling, territorial presence) and strategic benefits, while public stakeholders focus on social outcomes. Nonetheless, ECs' potential to address energy poverty is limited by incentive tariff design and modest private-sector engagement. These factors, along with low economic returns, risk undermining ECs viability once subsidies end. The article concludes with stakeholder and policy recommendations aimed at enhancing private investment while advancing the social objectives of energy communities.

Keywords: Energy communities; community energy; Italy; financing; ESG; investment; policy; impact (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G23 L3 L94 L98 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-04-11
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published in Energy Policy August 2026.215(2026): pp. 115246

Downloads: (external link)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/128721/1/MPRA_paper_128721.pdf original version (application/pdf)

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:pra:mprapa:128721

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Winter ().