Energy Community Business Models Archetypes

Energy Communities (ECs) constitute innovative organizational forms that promote energy market democratization by enabling multiple stakeholders to produce, manage, and control energy assets. Despite the emergence of diverse EC business models (BMs), a systematic categorization is lacking. Prior literature offers heterogeneous analyses due to varied analytical frameworks. This paper identifies and categorizes key dimensions from the literature and develops a tailored analytical framework for evaluating EC BMs. Through a systematic review of academic papers and reports, we identified five of the most recurrent and significant dimensions: value proposition, value capture, main functions, governance, and membership. These dimensions form the foundation of our newly developed comprehensive framework. Using this framework, we delineate four archetypal EC business models: self-consumption, third-party, aggregator, and integrated energy services and e-mobility. The proposed framework enhances the analysis of EC BMs and provides practical guidance for researchers and practitioners in designing, assessing, and optimizing these models.