2019/09/01 by Susana Soeiro, Marta Ferreira Dias · 1 citation
Business, Management and Accounting · #Cooperative Studies and Economics
paper · doi:10.1109/eem.2019.8916546
openalex publication_date 2019/09/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/14
The environmental and economic trends of recent decades have forced the world to urgently rethink current energy systems. Thus, further study on renewable energy cooperatives is necessary because of the relevant role they already play in some energy markets, but essentially because of the key role they can play in the future. However, academic research on energy cooperatives is widely dispersed and limited, particularly for southern European countries, i.e. countries that have no tradition on disseminating green energy. This paper presents a systematic review of the literature about these organizations that promote community-based renewable energy initiatives, based on primary and secondary sources, their main characteristics, motivations and performance in several European countries. This is an important state of the art and also a starting point for discussion for further research and also on the implications for stakeholders and policymakers.