To support community energy projects, Co2mmunity studies, initiates and develops regional partnerships of organisations active in the field called Renewable Energy Cooperative Partnership (RENCOP). To establish a sound knowledge base and make the knowledge generated in the next steps available to the broader public Co2mmunity develops the following outputs as part of the work package ‘Developing a Community Energy Database for the Baltic Sea Region’:
- An online database of community energy projects including an interactive map, that allows interested parties to inform themselves about projects in their region
- A scientific review paper of community energy barriers and drivers, providing a scientific input for other outputs and knowledge for citizens, project developers and policy makers
- A report on the current state of community energy in the Baltic Sea Region
- Additional scientific articles on lessons learned in the renewable cooperative partnerships established in each partner country
Of course, Co2mmunity will also establish RENCOPs in the partner regions and support the development of community energy projects. The work in this area is packaged under the title ‘Facilitating Community Energy Projects with the RENCOP model’ and will result in the following outputs:
- A stakeholder map and analysis as well as RENCOP model for each partner country
- A guideline for mobilising partners for a RENCOP
- A transnational community energy project agreement, that can be used to put a project into writing
- A roadmap for RENCOP development, to help municipalities in your region to establish an effective support structure for community energy development
Last but not least, Co2mmunity recognises that political support will be needed from national government as well. Consequently, we will also work on ‘Bringing Community Energy on the socio-political Agenda’, which will result in the following outputs:
- A community energy handbook for each of the 8 partner countries providing the essential information on community energy
- A white paper to inform national and regional actors on how to support and initiate community energy
- A policy paper for actors of the Baltic Sea Region suggesting specific policies on community energy