Reflecting on the progress of the Enercracy project

As the Enercracy project reaches its midpoint, we want to reflect on how its progress has affected the municipalities participating in it. To do so, we asked a series of questions to the representatives of Karlskrona municipality in Sweden (project partner) and Pornainen municipality in Finland (associated partner). Organised into two themes, we wanted to explore how the trajectories of the Enercracy project deepened their knowledge and experience in the project’s core themes – energy communities, prosumerism, solar and wind technologies, and municipal pathways to enabling them.

Prior experience with energy communities, prosumerism, and solar and wind technologies

The representatives of both municipalities state that they had prior experience with prosumerism and solar and wind technologies. Prior to the Enercracy project implementation, for instance, Karlskrona municipality was already ranked 44^th place out of 290 among Swedish municipalities based on the installed solar photovoltaic capacity. And overall, these technologies and the framework of prosumerism have been established parts of local energy landscapes. However, through the Enercracy project implementation, experience sharing among representatives from different countries highlighted distinct pathways to address the same need for energy transition.

The framework for energy communities, however, was less clear to the municipalities participating in the project. As the Karlskrona municipal representative states: ‘There was no clear strategic position, long-term objective or dedicated work related to energy communities as a part of municipal development.’ This, however, shifted during the Enercracy project implementation. Two representatives of the Pornainen municipality stated that the project activities made energy communities ‘clearer’. Similarly, the Karlskrona municipal representative states that the Enercracy project highlighted the wide range of benefits energy communities can provide, particularly from social and resilience perspectives. At the same time, however, it opened eyes to the new set of challenges – particularly in relation to bridging these benefits with the investment attractiveness.  The shared sentiment, however, remains unchanged – energy communities are crucial in local energy transitions.

Local energy and climate planning within the Enercracy project

The representatives of both municipalities share the same sentiment – local energy and climate planning play a central role in enabling the energy transition. A representative of Pornainen municipality particularly highlights the importance of local energy and climate planning in fostering self-sufficiency at the municipal level, which also includes local businesses. A Karlskrona municipality representative shared that, through the Enercracy project, the new energy plan placed much stronger emphasis on stakeholder involvement. Furthermore, they stated that ‘one of the most significant changes during the project has been a shift in perspective. We have moved from primarily viewing the energy transition as a technical and economic challenge towards a greater understanding of the importance of local engagement, ownership, cooperation and anchoring.’ This echoes what we hear also from other municipalities in the project – increasingly, the local energy transition is framed as an all-encompassing challenge beyond technoeconomic concerns alone.

To accommodate such shifts, the municipal toolbox is becoming increasingly complex, requiring a broader range of knowledge and experience to address all the elements of the energy transition. Here, the Draft Model Catalogue of Measures offers an aggregated knowledge from the Baltic Sea Region countries and beyond. The Catalogue lists various actions to include in the municipal climate and energy plans to enable energy communities, prosumerism, and solar and wind technologies. Both municipal cases highlight the Catalogue’s overall usefulness. Importantly, as the Karlskrona municipal representative highlights, ‘the work with the Draft Model Catalogue reinforced the understanding that energy planning is not primarily about identifying measures. There are many potential actions that municipalities and other stakeholders can take. The real challenge is determining which measures are most relevant, when they should be implemented and how to ensure that they are actually carried out.’ In Pornainen municipality, this necessitated quantitatively evaluating the effectiveness of the different measures, along with a dedicated monitoring tool to track future progress. These steps highlight that the local energy transition journey lies at the intersection of local needs, capacities, and opportunities.

What is next?

Energy-related issues are becoming increasingly important and broad for municipalities. Through the Enercracy project, the municipalities are actively transitioning to broaden their understanding and capacity to implement climate and energy actions that are aimed at and designed with local communities. Going into the second half of the project, the municipalities will finalise their local energy and climate plans, after which the learnings will be gathered to further improve the Draft Model Catalogue of Measures. All project learnings will be shared with municipalities beyond the project to promote local energy transitions rooted in energy communities, prosumerism, and solar and wind technologies.

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