Shedding light on Energy Communities-Policy challenges towards a high share of Energy communities in Greece

Abstract: In 2018 Greece enacted the Energy Communities (EC) Law which promotes energy democracy and Justice. Although there are several successful examples of ECs in Greece, they are far from becoming mainstream as they face many problems. I used the policy challenges framework provided by Busch et. all., (2021) in order to analyze the problems related to the diffusion of ECs in Greece and propose solutions to address them. I found that the challenges related to all the analytical lenses provided by the framework -Directionality, Demand Articulation, Experimentation, Policy Learning and Coordination. In addition, I suggest some measures that can strengthen ECs. Finally, I stress the need for further research. In particular, I propose to integrate the current analytical framework with the power and justice dimension as I believe it can shed light on the different trajectories that can emerge from the development of different ECs models.