**1. Introduction**

The energy infrastructure of Europe has been on the verge of transformation since the EU authorised itself, in the Treaty of Lisbon (2007), to establish harmonised measures relating to Member States' energy policy (TFEU Art. 194(1)). European policy aims to transform the energy markets to more consumer-centric and decentralised models (EC, 2018). One way of achieving decentralisation is to promote the set-up of local energy communities. Towards this goal, in 2019, the European Parliament adopted two directives (Renewable Energy Directive (RED II) and Internal Electricity Market Directive (EMD)) that for the first time recognise "certain categories of community energy initiative as ¨energy communities¨" [1]. Furthermore, collective energy initiatives have been in practice in Europe for several decades [2]. Therefore, several different terms and interpretations are used to describe the term "energy communities" [3]. A broader definition of energy communities is derived from their democratic and local governance model as organisational structures around collective local energy actions that provide value for their participants or the local community [1].

In addition to changes in policy direction, a paradigm shift is also occurring at a social level. Compared with the year 2000, the willingness of citizens in 2020 to contribute to sustainability initiatives seems to have increased [4]. Until 2020, the prevailing community models had been similar to those of the 1980s, when local energy communities acquired common ownership of a few large generation assets [5]. The new wave of sustainable local energy initiatives is capable of involving "organisational forms, technology uses, skills, infrastructures, markets, and other institutional requirements maladapted and challenging to conventional regimes" [6]. Community initiators now find that cheaper and more

**Citation:** Meitern, M. Does Access to Regulative Exemption Reduce Barriers for Energy Communities? A Dutch Case Study. *Sustainability* **2022**, *14*, 5608. https://doi.org/10.3390/ su14095608

Academic Editors: Pierfrancesco De Paola, Francesco Tajani, Marco Locurcio and Felicia Di Liddo

Received: 10 February 2022 Accepted: 20 April 2022 Published: 6 May 2022

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**Copyright:** © 2022 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

efficient technology combinations are available but, due to regulative constraints and industry push back, not applied. In this context, it is important to understand what changes would occur if/when regulative constraints are minimised. Would additional regulative freedom allow community initiators to exploit the opportunities available in the 2020s?

The initiation and managemen<sup>t</sup> of an energy community in the age of digitalisation is a complex process. When establishing energy communities, local authorities and community initiators encounter various economic, technical and institutional barriers [2]. This may in the long run result in systems of low public value [7]. Studies of energy communities confirm that they will be unstable if "heavily burdened by inefficient governance, complex legal requirements and high transaction costs" [8]. In the policy realm, sustainable innovation is desirable but it often faces the reigning structural power, especially in the field of niche development [6]. The academic literature further confirms that institutions favouring centralised energy systems constitute the largest barrier to local energy initiatives [9,10].

Even as EU Member States are introducing the energy communities concepts from RED II and EMD into their national legislation, some countries in Europe are already providing the possibility to test a potential new system set-up. For example, in 2015, the Dutch governmen<sup>t</sup> published an administrative "sandbox" decree that exempts certain innovative local energy projects from the Dutch Electricity Law [11]. This exemption allows the local community to take control of its energy system managemen<sup>t</sup> while pursuing goals to increase renewable generation and energy savings, while reducing CO2 emissions [11]. Under the regulative exemption, projects can combine energy production, supply and network operations within one organisation and provide energy to members without supplier licence requirement [12]. One such exemption has been granted to an energy cooperative within the municipality of Eemnes.

This article describes how the Dutch regulative exemption has impacted the process of setting up a new type of local energy community market in Eemnes and compares this experience with the common barriers that other energy communities face. Numerous articles have explored the general barriers that energy communities face and analysed the opportunities that communities could exploit. However, no paper has attempted to combine these two branches of research and analyse a real-life case that uses state-ofthe-art technologies and operates in a relaxed, regulative space. This study is the first to examine how additional regulative space could support the set-up and running of an innovative, citizen-led, local energy community, in particular, investigating whether the common barriers that energy communities encounter can be overcome with the help of the regulative freedom offered by the Dutch government. The lessons learnt can serve as an important example for European policymakers in understanding better the impact of the new policies on citizen-led energy initiatives.

The paper is organised as follows: Section 2 presents an overview of the Dutch policy context. Section 3 describes the case study and explains the methodology employed in this paper. Section 4 comprises the main part of the study. It presents the results of the meta-analysis and then contrasts these results with the results of the case study. Section 5 presents the conclusions and policy implications of the research.

#### **2. Policy Background: Dutch Energy Policy Related to Local Energy Initatives**

#### *2.1. Policy Context*

The overarching aim of the Dutch energy policy is to contribute to the European ambition for a sustainable, reliable and affordable energy supply [13]. From 2008 to 2020, to support local sustainable energy production, three new policies were adopted: the net metering scheme (*saldering*), the collective form of net metering (*postcoderoseregeing*) and regulative exemption (*ontheffing Besluit Experimenten decentrale duurzame elektriciteitsopwekking*) [11]. Compared with the energy communities established in the 1980s, the new energy communities have been encouraged to engage in broader activities at a local level, such as the resale of local renewable energy or providing advice on energy savings [2]. The new branding of the sale of local green energy and new services offered has increased

consumer interest while allowing the cooperative to earn extra profit [2]. In conjunction with falling PV panel prices, this has fomented a surge of energy cooperatives. In 2018, approximately 500 energy communities were active in the Netherlands [3]. However, while the Dutch governmen<sup>t</sup> has enacted policies to support local initiatives, some authors have argued that national policies are still primarily concentrating on supporting partnerships in traditional energy sectors and are paying little attention to citizen-led projects [2,12].

#### *2.2. Legal Framework*

The Netherlands Enterprise Agency (*Rijksdients voor Ondernemende Nederland* (RVO)), operating under the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy, defines energy communities as legal voluntary entities with open participation whose primary purpose is to provide local environmental, economic and social benefits while promising not to make a profit [14,15]. (Communities are expected to provide diverse energy-related services to their members [14]. The applicable legislation for energy communities in the Netherlands is the Electricity Act 1998. In Article 1ar, the law defines provisions for different forms of energy self-consumption [16]. Furthermore, since 2014, the law has permitted a regulatory exemption space for experiments that contribute to developments in the production, transport and delivery of locally generated sustainable electricity or electricity generated in a cogeneration installation [16]. The regulative exemption clause was further defined in the Dutch Experimentation Decree of 2015 [11]. This administrative decree (*Besluit experimenten decentrale duurzame elektriciteitsopwekking*) exempts cooperatives from complying with certain provisions of the Dutch Electricity Act for a period of 10 years [1].

#### *2.3. The Dutch Regulative Exemption*

The experimentation decree for renewable energy projects allows project-based exemptions to energy cooperatives wanting to take over the majority of tasks undertaken by the grid operator and electricity supplier that are otherwise forbidden [17].

The exemption holder can become the producer, supplier and manager of the community electricity grid, eliminating the current strict division in the rest of the energy market [12]. Another requirement is that 80% of the end users must be consumers. In principle, the grid will be transferred back to the grid operator after the end of the exemption [11]. All these provisions enable an energy community to test a new technical system that could lower electricity bills for end users while incentivising renewable energy take-up.

The exemption holder must decide which roles they will take over and which will be performed by partner organisations and communicate these decisions beforehand to RVO [18]. In addition, the cooperative must have an internal governance structure in place, along with complaint managemen<sup>t</sup> procedures. Finally, the exemption holders must prove to RVO that they have announced in writing the rates and delivery conditions to the customers in the network and obtained approval from the Authority Consumer Market (ACM) (the Dutch business regulation agency responsible for competition oversight, sector specific regulation, and consumer protection) for the methods employed to calculate the tariffs and tax rates [18]. Note that an exemption does not change the energy tax to be paid but allows the cooperative to discuss the matter with the ACM and possibly agree on a new rate [19].

The experimentation rules also set a maximum generation capacity for the community, which is equal to the maximum electricity consumption of the consumers participating in the experiment (+/−5%) [20]. Several other conditions and limitations apply, including the limitation of geographic scope, remaining approval of installation of generation capacity with the DSO, and bankruptcy provisions.

## *2.4. Policy Incentives*

#### 2.4.1. Net Metering

Since 2004, the Dutch governmen<sup>t</sup> has established a net metering scheme (*saldering*) that has made solar panels a popular investment among homeowners. The net metering scheme allows private prosumers to feed locally produced energy back to the grid. In exchange, the utility subtracts the energy that was fed back from the total electricity bill without adding tax [21]. The scheme incentivises self-consumption, as the netted amount is capped by the maximum consumption of the individual prosumer [22]. From 1 January 2023, the netting scheme will be gradually phased out [23]. By 2031, the prosumers will only receive a net feed-in price from the energy company for the returned solar power [23]. This will increase the payback time for homeowners investing in solar power by approximately 5 years [22].

#### 2.4.2. Zip Code Regulation

In 2014, the zip code regulation came into force (*postcoderoosregeling*), allowing community energy initiatives to share the ownership of electricity generation assets in a geographically delimited area. The policy was designed for citizens without access to their own installation site, such as a roof, but who wanted to participate in local renewable energy projects. The scheme incentivises citizens in an energy community to collectively set up a PV park or a windmill in the same postcode area [24]. Zip code regulation is a form of distant net metering or collective net metering [25] and even has a similar limitation: the collective project generation capacity must not exceed the maximum of 10.000 kWh/year, or the equivalent of members' yearly collective electricity consumption [26]. The policy mechanism was upgraded from collective self-consumption to a direct subsidy scheme in April 2021.
