The European Union is moving forward with their "Clean Energy for all Europeans" package, which outlines their approach to reaching at least 33% renewable energy by 2030 and 100% renewable energy by 2050. Therein, the document discusses how producer-consumers of energy (prosumers) will play a prominent role in reaching these goals through community-driven action (describedas "renewable energy communities" and "citizen energy communities". Their legislature offers an enabling framework for these communities to exist, hoping to provide an "equal footing" for community-based energy generation/consumption groups. Member states are necessitated to generate this footing based on their own unique sociopolitical approach, accounting for the differences in regionality across the European Union - no "one-size-fits-all" solution is going to work. Tenets of energy justice are incorporated through the widely-derived benefits of community projects; a community solar panel array will benefit the entire community in which it serves, rather than a single land-owner being benefitted for selling land to a developer who outsources electricity from a solar grid build there.
European Union, "European Union Clean Energy Package", contributed by Cam LaPorte, The Energy Rights Project, Platform for Experimental Collaborative Ethnography, last modified 9 June 2020, accessed 24 April 2024. https://energyrights.info/content/european-union-clean-energy-package
Critical Commentary
The European Union is moving forward with their "Clean Energy for all Europeans" package, which outlines their approach to reaching at least 33% renewable energy by 2030 and 100% renewable energy by 2050. Therein, the document discusses how producer-consumers of energy (prosumers) will play a prominent role in reaching these goals through community-driven action (describedas "renewable energy communities" and "citizen energy communities". Their legislature offers an enabling framework for these communities to exist, hoping to provide an "equal footing" for community-based energy generation/consumption groups. Member states are necessitated to generate this footing based on their own unique sociopolitical approach, accounting for the differences in regionality across the European Union - no "one-size-fits-all" solution is going to work. Tenets of energy justice are incorporated through the widely-derived benefits of community projects; a community solar panel array will benefit the entire community in which it serves, rather than a single land-owner being benefitted for selling land to a developer who outsources electricity from a solar grid build there.