D1.1 Social Innovation and Community Energy best practices, methods and tools across Europe

International energy production models are changing rapidly in response to the twin-pressures of climate change and declining fossil fuel reserves.1 As a result, low-carbon economies, their management and ownership, have become increasingly important. Community energy is a collective bottom-up approach to tackling challenges related to energy, sustainability and climate change. Community energy projects engage local people to lead, control and benefit jointly from their venture. The challenge is to meet sustainability targets for secure energy systems, minimized greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), as well as for reduced individual and group heating and electricity bills. New models for innovation are needed to realise the potential of community energy projects. Social innovation is a type of innovation that focuses on human factors. Community energy is a community based venture for generating and owning renewable energy. The combination of social innovation and community energy can create a new bottom-up approach to developing new alternative energy marketplaces (in the sense of entering the renewable energy market) with diverse impacts, i.e. social, environmental and financial. Community-generated and -owned renewable energy at the local and regional scale is a potential local-scale solution to the long-standing global problem associated with energy depletion and inefficient use of resources. The challenge for ISABEL, is that the definitions, practices, methods and tools to carry out such schemes are complex and do not follow a “single prescription to success” concept. They combine numerous powerful socio-economic and political attributes and although some of them may seem to borrow elements from a diverse number of sectors, they translate, in effect, into new projects that cannot be easily replicated. Therefore, the main purpose of this report is to explore and identify a number of practices, methods and tools in applying social innovation in community energy projects across Europe. In this analysis we explore examples of cases, methods and good practices that could inform future, successful renewable energy models and socially responsive ways to deliver social programs and partnerships across Europe. Complementing this use of secondary sources is an empirical study of relevant initiatives based on 18 semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders, which examines their understanding, experience and views of what makes for a successful social innovation community energy project, what are the obstacles, and how they can be addressed