The impact of Energy Communities on the Italian distribution systems

After a decade since the 20-20-20 Climate-Energy package, there are still many challenges to be faced in order to achieve decarbonisation of the electric energy sector. The European Union has set very challenging objectives for 2030 by providing for an even more massive diffusion of the distributed renewable generation units. In order to do so, the active participation of citizens in the mechanisms of production and sale of electricity has been identified as key factor for achieving these objectives. For this reason, RED-II and IEM directives introduced new entities, which allow citizens to become active players in the electricity system by producing, storing and selling self-produced renewable electricity. This research paper aims at analysing the Renewable Energy Community scheme resulting from the Italian implementation of EU regulations and how it will impact on the electric distribution systems. The study has been performed considering national statistics and shows that Renewable Energy Community can contribute to achieve 63% of the 2030 target of the renewable energy sources installation.