Co-construction method for policy recommendations to support energy communities.

In recent decades, the energy sector has seen a wave of participatory processes and tools aimed at actively involving citizens, also but not only as consumers, in order to make them more aware and active in the processes of decarbonisation and promotion of renewable energies and less polluting, and therefore less risky, behaviour. Participatory processes integrate expert knowledge in the perspective of relational and situated knowledge production, which in turn can generate practical and real results. In the field of energy systems, this general consideration is even more complex, since the technological and technical component is characterised by a very high degree of specialisation and the very action of the technologies has an impact on the knowledge and practice of the world of all those involved. Based on these considerations, it was decided to create a virtual participation space where, through the use of a foresight tool, it was possible to build new knowledge on the subject of organising and creating energy communities in Italy. The working group decided to focus on a participatory and analytical tool that would allow participants to focus on the future of Energy Communities. With this aim in mind, it was decided to involve 18 representatives of organisations that had started to experience the organisation of renewable energy communities at national and local level and were interested in understanding how an energy community could be realised in concrete terms, with a view to proposing recommendations to political bodies at national and international level.