The Role of (Aspired) Energy Resilience in Developing Energy Communities in Sweden : An Analysis of Stakeholder Perspectives
2025
Kuch, Tilla Gwendolin
The relevance of energy resilience in energy systems is increasing nowadays because of political insecurity and environmental disasters, but also because of an increasing electrification of industries and society. Potential power outages and blackouts can lead to direct and indirect consequences on social, environmental and economic dimensions. Besides this, the trend of local decentralized energy systems is increasing, the concept of Energy Communities is one of them. This work analyses the connection between energy resilience with Energy Communities, specifically on how the aspiration of energy resilience is driving the development of Energy Communities in Sweden. Different perspectives of multiple stakeholders were analyzed, from Energy Communities to national institutional perspectives. This research was conducted with the method of a document analysis on relevant reports and EU-Directives, a systematic literature review, and semi-structured stakeholder interviews while using the (reflexive) thematic analysis by Braun & Clarke. As for results, they show that energy resilience is, besides other objectives, a driving factor for Energy Communities on local level. This was especially found for the stakeholders of NGO and Energy Community representatives, however also the institutional representatives stated Energy Communities as potential asset for the Swedish energy system for local systems. On Swedish national energy policy, the concept of Energy Community appears to have limited significance, especially in enhancing energy resilience in Sweden. In connection with academic studies on increasing energy resilience with local energy systems, this work argues that Energy Communities could be stronger considered in national debate for enhancing local energy resilience.
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