Mapping the legal framework for scaling up energy communities and energy sharing
This is the fourth installment of the Topic of the Month: Action Plan for Affordable Energy
Mapping and comparing the legal framework, from open-source platforms to consumer protection
Both the Affordable Energy Action Plan and the Citizens Energy Package have reinforced the importance of empowering citizens and communities in the energy sector. The call for evidence on the Citizens Energy Package raised issues regarding consumer participation in energy communities, noting that only a small fraction of the EU´s population is engaging in them.[1] It then requests a comprehensive set of measures to address key legal, administrative, and technical barriers faced by the energy communities. As a result of the call for evidence for the Citizens Energy Package, the factual summary report went even further, suggesting the need for guidance for energy communities, as well as for active consumers and energy sharing.
The fourth instalment of this topic of the month sheds light on the recent research outputs of the Florence School of Regulation (FSR) in the second semester of 2025, which mapped legal and regulatory barriers to scaling up energy communities and energy sharing from different perspectives.
One is the U2Demo project (“Use of open-source P2P energy sharing platforms for energy democratisation”), funded by the European Union’s Horizon Innovation Actions, aiming to develop methods, open-source tools, and platforms that address the needs of active customers engaging in energy sharing and P2P trading within energy communities. The other is the Study commissioned by the European Commission on the relevance of consumer rights and protections in the emerging energy-related services, including, among others, energy sharing and energy communities.
1. Mapping Legal and Regulatory Framework for enabling energy sharing within energy communities in scalable and open-source platforms
Advances in technology have driven a shift towards decentralised energy systems. Energy communities are governance frameworks legally enabled to operate, among other activities, energy-sharing schemes and P2P trading among active customers. These decentralised activities could be facilitated by innovative methods, tools, and platforms that automate information flows between energy communities and sharing organisers vis-à-vis other market participants (e.g., DSOs, electricity suppliers, and national authorities), such as sharing keys, bids, bills, and flexibility.
Most of the existing platforms are “tailor-made”´ for a specific energy community of sharing schemes operating in a specific Member State. However, these platforms could also be “off-the-shelf” open-source tools, with scalability to be applied across different use cases and Member States. The U2Demo project has the ambition of delivering the latter.
The feasibility and scalability of an open-source platform for energy sharing and P2P trading within energy communities depend heavily on mapping legal and regulatory frameworks across the EU and its Member States, covering governance, access to technology, licences, network operations, data management, billing, benefit sharing, and more.
The EU advanced relevant legal reforms in the Electricity Market Directive (EMD 2019/944) and Renewable Energy Directive (RED 2018/2001). These reforms empowered active customers—individually or collectively—to generate, consume, store, sell electricity, and participate in flexibility or energy service schemes, including P2P trading and energy sharing via energy communities. Directive (EU) 2024/1711 further details energy sharing rules post-energy crisis, complementing the framework for collective self-consumption within ECs.
Although the legal reform in the EMD and the RED, these measures leave considerable discretion for Member States to transpose them differently. Consequently, this results in divergent allocation of roles and responsibilities among market players across different Member States when active customers engage in energy sharing and P2P trading.
The FSR has led the delivery of the report mapping the legal and regulatory frameworks that enable the development of consumer-centric models for energy sharing and P2P trading within ECs. The research begins by mapping the rules enshrined in EU legislation applicable to ECs and their energy-sharing and P2P-trading activities. Then it moves to mapping their transposition into the national jurisdictions of four Member States, where the U2Demo pilots are located: Italy, Portugal, Belgium (Flanders), and the Netherlands.
The report identifies key divergences in the transposed measures by Member States regarding the governance of energy communities and their operational rules. Considering 11 variables in the governance, the report identifies differences primarily in member eligibility, control powers, asset ownership, and legally permitted activities. Other divergences have been identified across the 7 operational-level phases in energy sharing: licensing and permitting, contracting, agreement registration, operational management, calculation of results, registration of results, and financial settlement. Last but not least, the report also carefully maps the divergences in the concept of P2P trading and energy sharing.
The report and its results will be made publicly available soon after validation by the Project Officer (PO).
2. Consumer rights and protection gaps in energy sharing within and outside energy communities
The digitalisation of energy markets is leading to a significant expansion in the range of services available to consumers. Before 2018-2019, consumer protection in sector-specific legislation had mainly focused on the traditional supplier-consumer relationship. However, recently adopted laws in both the electricity and gas sectors are beginning to reflect key developments, highlighting a shift away from the conventional model in which consumers purchase energy only from suppliers. Consumers are expected to shift towards buying services and technologies that offer greater convenience and empower them to manage their energy consumption. This shift involves not only traditional suppliers but also the emergence of new market players, such as energy communities, aggregators, energy-sharing organisers, companies offering automated decision-making tools, peer-to-peer interactions, and intermediaries providing innovative energy-related services.
The Study commissioned by the European Commission on the relevance of consumer rights and protections in emerging energy-related services has mapped consumer rights and protection gaps across 8 emerging services, of which 2 concern energy sharing: energy sharing schemes organised as collective self-consumption and energy communities facilitating energy sharing.
For the energy sharing per se not organised within a energy community, its schemes might involve several contracts: (1) the energy sharing agreement among active customers; (2) the agreement between active costumers and the energy sharing organiser; (3) the agreement between active customers and their traditional (residual) energy suppliers, and, if applicable, (4) the renting or leasing agreement between the active customer(s) and the installed generation or storage facility owner. Consumer rights and protection gaps are mapped for each of these contracts. Among the findings, results and policy recommendations, the study identifies the first type of agreement – those between active customers – as the one that deserves most attention, considering general consumer law would not be applicable to agreements between consumers.
The Study will be made publicly available soon, released alongside the proposal for the Citizens Energy Package.
References:
- DE ALMEIDA, Lucila, PORCARI, Alessandra, MÜNCHMEYER, Max, WINTERS, Eva, MORAIS, Hugo, Mapping law and regulation in energy sharing and P2P trading within energy communities, U2Demo, Technical Report, 2025, Deliverable 1.1, [Florence School of Regulation] – https://hdl.handle.net/1814/94401
- DE ALMEIDA, Lucila, POTOTSCHNIG, Alberto, PORCARI, Alessandra, ROSSETTO, Nicolò, A study on the relevance of consumer rights and protections in the context of innovative energy-related services, European Commission, Directorate-General for Energy, Research Study, 2025, [Florence School of Regulation] – https://hdl.handle.net/1814/94400
[1] The European Commission in the Call for Evidence for Citizens Energy Package reports that, “as of early 2024, over 9000 energy communities in Europe engaged approximately 1.5 million citizens, a small fraction of the EU´s population.
