# Energy Communities Design Optimization in the Italian Framework
### Energy Communities in the Italian Regulatory Framework  
The Clean Energy Package is a set of eight legislative acts with which the European Union has reformed its energy policy framework. It contains two definitions of energy community: renewable energy community (REC), which is defined in the Renewable Energy Directive 2018/2001 (RED II) [1], and citizen energy community (CEC), which is contained in the Electricity Market Directive 2019/944 [2]. Italy, as the other European Member States, has to transpose the Directives into its national law respectively before the 30 th December 2020 and the 30 th June 2021. Energy communities have stimulated a great interest in the Italian context and pilot legislative initiatives have been introduced. In March 2020, Italy implemented the first law anticipating transposition of Articles 21 and 22 of the RED II [4]. Article 42 of the law is named \"Autoconsumo da fonti rinnovabili\" (Self-consumption from renewable sources) and allows the activation of initiatives of collective self-consumption and renewable energy communities. The proposed configurations are transitional and two of the main purposes are to obtain lessons from the regulatory point of view and study the reactions of the various stakeholders, such as citizens and network operators. This experimental phase has some limits regarding the time windows for the activation of the project and the characteristics of the configurations. In order to access this model of experimentation, the plants of the renewable energy communities or collective self-consumption must have come into operation after the date of entry into force of Legge n. 8 and within sixty days from what will be the date of the measure transposing Directive (EU) 2018/2001. In these new configurations, energy is produced by means of new plants powered by renewable sources to satisfy members' consumption. The maximum power of each plant cannot exceed 200 kW. In the case of RECs, both consumers and generators are connected to the same low voltage grid, while in the case of collective self-consumption they are located in the same building. The energy produced is shared using the existing distribution network. It is interesting to notice that also jointly acting self-consumers formally use the distribution network to share energy. Indeed, even if they are located in the same building, each user is connected to the network by means of a different point of delivery (POD). The shared energy is equal to the minimum, in each hourly period, between the electrical energy produced and fed into the grid by the renewable plants of the community and the electrical energy withdrawn by all the associated end customers. Although, in the future, participation in RECs will be opened also to existing plants, it is evident that the legislator wants to use the transitional regime as a tool for creating new renewable energy sources capacity [5]. Within the REC, however, the members still detail their end customers rights, such as free choice of their energy retailer and freedom of being self-consumers. Furthermore, the energy withdrawn from the grid will be charged with the individual contracts between the members and their retailers. From the commercial point of view, the energy is retired from the publicly owned company Gestore dei Servizi Energetici (GSE), that provides revenue comprising the market value plus an incentive for the amount of energy that results to be shared. The revenues are given to a reference subject, chosen by the community, and then the members regulate the internal redistribution via private contracts. It is important to notice that, with the proposed scheme, the current legislation tries to emulate a \"pure\" mechanism of energy sharing with another one, that has the same economic effect for users. Specifically, the energy that is formally \"shared\" is actually withdrawn by the GSE, while the members continue to buy the energy from their retailer. The incentive is intended to give back to the users the value already paid to their retailers.