From Grassroots to Grids: Navigating challenges and opportunities within Renewable Energy Communities Networks in Italy.

Already a well-attended theme in terms of grassroots action (Walker, Devin-Wright, 2008) and their potential for meaning-making in the context of the ecological transition (Walker et al., 2010), Renewable Energy Communities (RECs) are now part of Italy's decarbonization strategy. The topic of community energy has garnered significant interest in the literature, both in the role it can play in the acceptance of renewables (Bauwens and Devine-Wright, 2018) and in broader dynamics of local participation and engagement (Walker et al., 2010). Despite the presence of a growing academic interest in Italy as well (Trevisan et al., 2023; Bianco et al., 2021; Ceglia et al., 2022), the RECs Italian landscape is still in a developmental condition. In fact, there are still multidimensional limits in the RECs experiences in Italy and, more broadly, in Europe. On one hand, recent literature includes reflections on the actual ability of RECs to attract parts of civil society (e.g., Conradie et al., 2021; Fischer et al., 2020) and their impact in rural contexts (Romero-Castro et al., 2022). In the case of Italy, a situation of legal uncertainty that lasted until recently has placed energy communities in a pilot phase from which they have not yet fully emerged. Moreover, Italian prosumers are also struggling with numerous "obligatory passage points", especially of a technical nature. This kind of limitations may oblige many RECs to rely on consultancy services provided by the traditional oligopolies currently active in the Italian energy sector. For these reasons, many energy communities are self-organizing into structures for coordination and representation. A notable case is the Solidarity Network of Renewable Energy Communities of Rome (SRECs Network), in which numerous energy communities are organizing into a broader structure strongly oriented towards community welfare, technical self-sufficiency, dialogue with local institutions, a system of internal monitoring and a common set of values, advocating for energy democracy (Szulecki, Overland 2020) and energy justice (Sovacool and Dworkin, 2015). The ultimate aim of this network is to challenge the dominant technocentric narratives of the transition (Loloum et al., 2021), in order to redefine a different approach to energy consumption. However, there are other cases developing and which are yet to explore. This interdisciplinary research, conducted with a participatory approach, aims to answer the following questions: How do the emerging networks of energy communities in Italy configure themselves in terms of organizational form, and which actors (besides RECs) are involved in them? What technical elements (e.g. financial sustainability, facilities maintenance) can be managed efficiently within the networks, and what necessitate external intervention, such as training or consultancy from traditional operators of the energy sector? What is the potential of these networks to reframe the dominant narratives of the energy transition, beside a mere pro-environmental behavior?