The plan is for EU citizens to begin generating half of the energy from renewable sources needed to achieve the EU’s climate neutrality goal. Energy communities are legal entities that enable citizens, small businesses, and local authorities to produce, manage, share, and consume their own energy. They can contribute to the energy transition, improve the financial accessibility of energy, and strengthen the role of citizens in these processes. The EU has achieved only 27% of its goal to establish at least one energy community in every municipality with a population of over 10,000 by 2025. This goal is not proportionate and has not received the necessary support for its implementation, and its progress is not being sufficiently monitored. The EU’s definitions regarding the participation of apartment owners’ associations remain unclear. Furthermore, governments have not created all the necessary conditions to support the development of communities, such as incentives for energy storage to alleviate the strain on the electricity grid. The European Court of Auditors’ recommendations are aimed at addressing these shortcomings.
Special Report No. 10/2026 of the European Court of Auditors (ECA) from this past March is dedicated to energy communities—legal entities that have been a hot topic in public discourse in recent years, enabling citizens, small businesses, and local authorities to produce, manage, share, and consume their own energy. The report covers the period from December 2020 to July 2025, with four Member States audited: the Netherlands, Poland, Italy, and Romania.
The significance of the topic stems from the EU’s target of at least a 42.5% share of renewable energy by 2030, with a reported share of 25.4% for 2024. The Commission has estimated that half of EU citizens could produce up to 50% of the necessary renewable energy by 2050. The 2022 EU Solar Energy Strategy sets the policy goal of having at least one renewable energy community in every municipality with a population of over 10,000 by 2025. The legal framework is based on Directive (EU) 2018/2001 (RED II) and Directive (EU) 2019/944. Under the MFF, measures with projected costs of €5.2 billion are allocated to support communities through December 2026.
Key findings of the ECA
1. The EU’s target: ambitious, but poorly substantiated and unsecured
The ECA notes that as of January 2025, the EU had achieved only 27% of the set target, and progress is highly uneven—Denmark (86.2%), the Netherlands (81.0%), and Ireland (78.9%) are close to full compliance, while Bulgaria (0.8%), Romania (0.4%), and Malta (0%) have achieved practically nothing. The target itself is specific and time-bound, but it does not meet the criteria for measurability and realism, as it does not quantify either the number of participating citizens or the installed renewable energy capacity. The Commission has not provided a methodological justification for how the target was set, nor has it analyzed its feasibility.
Unclear legal definitions add to the complexity. The two regulatory concepts—renewable energy communities under the Renewable Energy Directive II and citizen energy communities under the Internal Market Directive—overlap in terms of governance and purpose, but differ in the scope of energy produced and the range of eligible members. Two of the four audited countries apply national concepts that are not aligned with EU definitions—the Netherlands operates through approximately 700 cooperatives with no direct legal correspondence to the definitions in the directive, while Poland has transposed the two concepts into a single one. Half of the participants in the focus groups conducted assess the national definitions as unclear.
Multi-family residential buildings, in which 48% of EU citizens live, pose a particular challenge. Existing homeowners’ associations cannot be directly repurposed as the basis for registering an energy community due to the requirement for voluntary membership. The Commission has not issued guidelines clarifying the range of legal options available to apartment owners—from the collective consumption of self-generated electricity to a full-fledged energy community.
2. Overly Optimistic Forecasts for RES Capacity
In the 2016 impact assessment of the Renewable Energy Directive II (RED II), the Commission projected that by 2030, energy communities could own 21% of solar and 17% of wind capacity in the EU. CE Delft’s updated forecast (2024) for the Netherlands, the country with the most developed cooperatives, indicates a realistic scenario of just 4.4% for solar and 4.3% for wind energy by 2030. Actual data for 2024 confirm the structural lag—in Poland and Italy, the share of communities in installed solar capacity ranges between 0.06% and 0.09%, and in Romania, it is zero. The ECA concludes that the 2016 forecasts were overly optimistic.
3. Incomplete transposition and missing national assessments
Four years after the transposition deadlines expired, only Italy has demonstrated full implementation of the provisions of the two directives concerning energy communities. The Commission has issued formal letters of notice and reasoned opinions but has not referred the matter to the Court of Justice of the EU. DEVI II requires governments to assess the barriers and potential for the development of communities, but only Poland and the Netherlands have fulfilled this obligation.
4. Grid Connection and Financing
The communities consulted report an average wait time of nearly two years for grid connection. In the Netherlands, the maximum wait time reaches 132 months due to widespread grid congestion, with over 4 GW of renewable energy capacity stuck in queues. In Poland, the average wait time is about 300 days, despite a regulatory preference period of 30 days for micro-installations. Grid operators declare a willingness to facilitate faster connections provided that communities provide flexibility and storage services, but such incentives are absent from national legislation.
Regarding financing, public support in the Netherlands, Poland, and Italy allows for payback periods ranging from 2.5 to 14 years, which generally aligns with the Commission’s benchmark of under 10 years for solar rooftops. The Dutch model of a revolving fund for early-stage project development is considered a best practice with a multiplier effect, whereby every €1 of public investment attracts approximately €40 in private funds. In Romania, the complete lack of subsidies is blocking development, and the country has only one registered community without electricity generation.
5. Citizens and Vulnerable Households
About half of the communities consulted have citizen members. 60% offer no support whatsoever to vulnerable households. None of the audited countries has introduced a legal requirement for a minimum share of citizens. The ECA warns of the risk of communities formed solely for the purpose of receiving subsidies without genuine citizen participation. The Commission’s guidelines on the inclusion of vulnerable households have not been updated and, according to stakeholders, are virtually unknown.
ECA Recommendations and European Commission Positions
Recommendation 1: Clarifying access for apartment owners
The Commission should publish guidelines and best practices regarding the legal options for involving apartment owners, either directly or through homeowners’ associations, in the production, sharing, and sale of renewable energy.
Target date: December 2026
EC Position: The EC accepts the recommendation. A recommendation to Member States is planned in the context of the Energy Citizens’ Package, along with guidelines for optimizing self-consumption in multi-family buildings and a practical guide through the Energy Citizens’ Advisory Hub.
Recommendation 2: SMART targets and their reflection in national plans
The Commission should develop SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) targets linked to expected benefits (number of citizens and/or installed renewable energy capacity), and, when revising the Regulation on the Governance of the Energy Union, propose the mandatory inclusion of community targets in national energy and climate plans.
Target date: December 2027
EC Position: The EC accepts both sub-recommendations. It recognizes installed capacity as a more stable indicator than the number of citizens. It clarifies that it cannot predetermine the scope of a future legislative proposal but identifies the Governance Regulation as an appropriate instrument.
Recommendation 3: Improving Registration and Monitoring
The Commission should improve the guidelines for the registration and monitoring of energy communities in Member States.
Target date: December 2026.
EC position: The EC accepts the recommendation. The issue will be addressed in the Citizens’ Energy Package.
The Citizens’ Consultation Center will support implementation.
Recommendation 4: Assessment of barriers and potential (Italy and Romania)
The ministries of Italy and Romania should conduct and publish an assessment of existing barriers and the potential for the development of renewable energy communities.
Target date: July 2027
EC Position: The Commission notes that the recommendation is addressed to Italy and Romania. Both countries have accepted the recommendation.
Recommendation 5: Strengthening the role of citizens and vulnerable households
a) The Commission should update the guidelines on the inclusion of vulnerable households and the development of incentives for communities in this regard. b) Poland, Italy, and Romania should develop provisions to promote citizen participation.
Target date: December 2026
EC Position: The EC accepts sub-recommendation a). The issue will be addressed in the Citizens’ Energy Package, including a potential update to the recommendation on energy poverty. Sub-recommendation b) is addressed to the three countries, all of which have accepted the recommendation.
Recommendation 6: Support for energy storage
a) In the Energy Package for Citizens, the Commission should call on Member States to introduce incentives for energy storage. b) The Netherlands and Poland should introduce specific incentives for storage or flexibility services.
Target date: a) December 2026; b) July 2027.
EC Position: The EC accepts sub-recommendation a). It plans to promote frameworks for storage and access to flexibility markets in the Energy Package for Citizens. The Netherlands and Poland have accepted sub-recommendation b).
Bulgaria is listed in the report with a share of 0.8% of municipalities with over 10,000 residents having at least one RES community, among the lowest in the EU. The country is not included in the audited sample, but the findings have direct regulatory implications. Bulgaria has not published the national assessment of barriers and potential required under the Renewable Energy Directive II, and the transposition of the directive regarding energy communities remains incomplete.
Key systemic challenges affecting the entire EU include a lack of administrative infrastructure for registration and monitoring, limited grid capacity, and underfunded distribution networks in a number of regions, a lack of specialized financial instruments for the early stages of project development, and low awareness among potential participants.
The Citizens’ Energy Package is likely to provide additional regulatory impetus and will necessitate new legislative and regulatory changes in this regard as well.
More on the website of the European Court of Auditors.
