Prosumers for the Energy Union: mainstreaming active participation of citizens in the energy transition Assessment of existing EU-wide and Member State-specific regulatory and policy frameworks of RES Prosumers

The report analyzes the legal landscape for RES prosumers and renewable energy communities (REComs) in the EU and nine Member States: Belgium/Flanders, Croatia, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. It finds a significant gap between recent EU-level efforts to promote active citizen participation—such as the RED II and the draft recast Electricity Directive—and the diverse, often restrictive, national laws. While some countries like Germany and France have more advanced frameworks, others like Portugal and Belgium/Flanders face substantial regulatory barriers, including the lack of legal definitions for energy communities and restrictions on peer-to-peer energy sharing. The report concludes that EU legislation is likely to drive national policy changes toward more progressive, citizen-centered energy models.

• The EU has recently introduced legal definitions and rights for 'renewables self-consumers', 'jointly acting renewables self-consumers', and 'renewable energy communities' through the RED II and the draft recast Electricity Directive, aiming to empower citizens as active agents in the energy sector.
• There is a significant disparity in the level of supportive legal frameworks across the nine analyzed Member States; Germany and France are described as advanced, while Portugal is noted as being far behind.
• In Belgium/Flanders, the absence of specific regulations for energy communities and the prohibition of direct electricity exchange between neighbors act as major obstacles to collective self-consumption.
• Croatia's regulatory framework for prosumers is hindered by a monthly rather than annual calculation period for surplus energy, which fails to account for the seasonal nature of renewable energy production.
• France allows collective self-consumption operations, but these are often limited by geographical and technical constraints, specifically requiring participants to be behind the same low-to-medium voltage transformer station.
• Germany's Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) provides a strong framework but is characterized by high complexity and a lack of equal privileges between single households and energy communities.
• The United Kingdom is facing a transition period as the Feed-in Tariff (FIT) scheme, a primary incentive for RES prosumers, ended in April 2019, leading to concerns about the lack of remuneration for surplus energy fed into the grid.
• Italy's regulatory framework is fragmented due to shared competences between the state and regions, and it currently lacks a general legal definition for energy communities.
• Portugal's self-consumption law, dating from 2014, is considered outdated and does not provide a legal basis for the establishment of renewable energy communities or peer-to-peer energy sales.
• Spain recently abolished the 'sun tax' and allowed the sharing of self-produced energy among various consumers through Royal Decree-Law 15/2018, though a clear definition of energy communities is still lacking.
• The Netherlands utilizes a 'postcode area' system for collective net metering, allowing members of a cooperative to receive energy tax discounts if the production installation is in the same or adjacent postcode area.
• Across the analyzed countries, the requirement for a supply license to sell energy to other consumers is a recurring barrier that prevents small prosumer collectives from operating as energy suppliers.

APA

Toporek, M., & Campos, I. (2019). Prosumers for the Energy Union: mainstreaming active participation of citizens in the energy transition Assessment of existing EU-wide and Member State-specific regulatory and policy frameworks of RES Prosumers. ClientEarth. https://www.clientearth.org/media/mg2lgkn0/assessment-of-existing-eu-wide-and-member-state-specific-regulatory-and-policy-frameworks-of-res-prosumers-coll-en.pdf

Chicago

Toporek, Marta, and Inês Campos. Prosumers for the Energy Union: mainstreaming active participation of citizens in the energy transition Assessment of existing EU-wide and Member State-specific regulatory and policy frameworks of RES Prosumers. ClientEarth, 2019. https://www.clientearth.org/media/mg2lgkn0/assessment-of-existing-eu-wide-and-member-state-specific-regulatory-and-policy-frameworks-of-res-prosumers-coll-en.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Toporek |first1=Marta |last2=Campos |first2=Inês |title=Prosumers for the Energy Union: mainstreaming active participation of citizens in the energy transition Assessment of existing EU-wide and Member State-specific regulatory and policy frameworks of RES Prosumers |publisher=ClientEarth |date=1 March 2019 |url=https://www.clientearth.org/media/mg2lgkn0/assessment-of-existing-eu-wide-and-member-state-specific-regulatory-and-policy-frameworks-of-res-prosumers-coll-en.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{toporek2019prosumers, author = {Toporek, Marta and Campos, Inês}, title = {{Prosumers for the Energy Union: mainstreaming active participation of citizens in the energy transition Assessment of existing EU-wide and Member State-specific regulatory and policy frameworks of RES Prosumers}}, institution = {ClientEarth}, year = {2019}, month = mar, url = {https://www.clientearth.org/media/mg2lgkn0/assessment-of-existing-eu-wide-and-member-state-specific-regulatory-and-policy-frameworks-of-res-prosumers-coll-en.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }