Recent agreement to reform Europe’s electricity market has enshrined into European Union law the unprecedented right of consumers to produce, sell and share their own electricity in newly-defined “citizen energy communities”.

Energy policy enthusiasts in Brussels see the move as a potential turning point for the mass deployment of small-scale renewable energy, such as solar power.

“Europe is on the brink of a clean energy revolution,” said Miguel Arias Cañete, the EU Commissioner for climate action and energy, when he unveiled the proposals back in November 2016.

“Consumers and communities will be empowered to actively participate in the electricity market and generate their own electricity, consume it or sell it back to the market,” the Commission promised at the time.

The EU news website EurActiv reports two years on, it’s fair to say that the EU has largely delivered on this promise, at least on paper.

“A new horizon is opening for energy ownership and democracy in Europe,” said green campaign group Friends of the Earth Europe in reaction to the agreement, calling the reform of Europe’s electricity market “a climate game-changer”.

At the centre of the EU’s vision are “active consumers” who generate, store, sell or share their own electricity, using things such as rooftop solar panels, batteries, and charging stations for electric vehicles.

By 2030, the European Commission estimates that more than 50 gigawatts (GW) of wind and solar could be owned by energy communities, representing 17 per cent and 21 per cent of installed capacity, respectively.

The deal just reached introduces the concept of “citizen energy communities” into EU law, enabling consumers in the same neighbourhood or building to produce and share their own electricity.

“It is an entity which is open to the participation of everybody,” said Dario Tamburrano, an Italian politician from the Five Star Movement, who was among the negotiators on the bill.

EurActiv reports around half of EU citizens could produce their own renewable electricity by 2050, according to a study by Dutch consultancy firm CE Delft, published in 2016, and about 37 per cent of it could come from energy communities, the study showed.

“It’s really the start of something,” said Manon Dufour, head of Brussels office at E3G, a think-tank working to accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy.

Encouraging citizens to produce their own energy “could make a drastic difference” in the fight against global warming, she pointed out, saying people taking part in local energy communities not only produce clean electricity but also tend to consume it more responsibly than average households.

“We’ve also seen that local energy communities bring greater local benefits and welfare than commercial or foreign investments,” Ms Dufour added, citing the experience of Germany where local energy communities have brought “eight times more economic benefits” than traditional energy utilities.

The local benefits were also highlighted by Naomi Chevillard of SolarPower Europe, an industry association, who pointed to the “big potential” of energy communities for the local economy.

“We see a lot of business models being created in this area,” she said, citing smart energy management systems for instance.

EurActiv reports that now that rules for citizen energy communities are adopted at European level, the question is how EU member states will apply them at a national level.

“It’s still not clear what the national regulators should do,” said Luis Hernández, head of decentralised energy at E.ON, a German energy company that specialises in electricity distribution networks and services.

E.ON first got involved in local energy communities with a project in the village of Smiris, in Sweden.

The EU-funded project, called local energy systems, aimed at making the village entirely self-sufficient, using 100 per cent renewable and locally produced electricity.

The solar PV park and wind turbines already in place in Smiris were connected to a smart control system, and a storage battery, which feeds electricity back into the local grid when the sun stops shining or the wind does not blow.

To store the excess energy, citizens were encouraged to use appliances such as hot water boilers, heat pumps, batteries and rooftop solar panels, which are owned and shared by the people of Smiris.

Looking into the future, E.ON believes more people will be interested in such models, and sees “a business opportunity” in building and operating the facilities, such as micro-grids.

“We understand this as being the endgame, the 2050 vision of where we want to be,” Mr Hernández said.

Mr Tamburrano, the Italian Five-Star MEP, said he was “disappointed” for example that the principle of “autonomy” was only vaguely defined in the EU text.

“We’re looking at a growing electricity sector,” remarked Ms Dufour of E3G, pointing to the growing range of services that will be on offer in the near future, including demand-response, aggregation and storage.

“Another missed opportunity, in our view, is the recognition of the right of citizen energy communities to own and manage their distribution grid,” Mr Tamburrano said.

According to the newly-adopted rules at EU level, the decision on grid ownership is left to the discretion of national governments, a concession made to France which has a monopoly over the energy distribution network.

“Member states still have the possibility of granting such a right” when transposing the rules at national level, Mr Tamburrano remarked.

“And we hope that where the right conditions are in place, they could make this additional step forward.”