The Italian energy transition from the bottom-up: a comparative and participatory investigation with the Italian energy collective initiatives’ ecosystem

Energy collective initiatives (ECIs) are gaining increasing policy and scholarly attention for the role they can play in steering the process of the energy transition from the bottom up. By using a participatory research method inspired by the Consortium Benchmarking, the authors investigate a reasoned selection of Italian ECIs pursuing a double goal: the ECIs characterization with respect to their current and future organizational nature and the identification of a common ground for ECIs’ consolidation and expansion as well as the support to national ECIs’ evolution and scaling up. The study reveals that, despite the differences in their legal forms and purposes, the Italian ECIs are able to offer not only an alternative business model, but also a radically different organizational scheme in residential and/or occupational terms, as well as in the decision-making process, which can be inspired by the consensus principle. A relevant policy consideration is that Italian ECIs look attentively to renewable energy communities (RECs) as a promising tool to foster the decarbonisation and democratization of the Italian energy system, even though ECI’s interaction with these innovative actors and their adaptation to the new norms ruling the European energy system pose some intriguing challenges.