Energy communities organise collective and citizen-driven energy actions that will help pave the way for a clean energy transition, while moving citizens to the fore. They contribute to increase public acceptance of renewable energy projects and make it easier to attract private investments in the clean energy transition. At the same time, they have the potential to provide direct benefits to citizens by advancing energy efficiency and lowering their electricity bills.

By supporting citizen participation, energy communities can moreover help in providing flexibility to the electricity system through demand-response and storage. (source: European Commission)

The role of citizens, businesses and all types of energy consumers will change in short future. Today, all EU-members are implementing Local Energy Communities (LEC's), defined as "an association, a cooperative, a partnership, a non-profit organization or other legal entity which is effectively controlled by local shareholders or members, generally value rather than profit-driven, involved in distributed generation and in performing activities of a distribution system operator, supplier or aggregator at local level, including across borders".

The overall objective of the LECSEA-project is a succesful take-off of Energy Communities (EC's) in the 2-Seas region. This will lead to unlocking extra potential of mid-scale sustainable energy.

Want to get involved? Check:

• Be part of Energy Communities
• Agenda, News & Media
• The pilot projects in France, Belgium, the UK and the Netherlands
• The LECSEA Resource Database with reports, articles, good practices and tools that can help you get set up.