Greece cannot easily be described as a “laggard” in Europe when it comes to energy communities if one looks solely at their number. In May 2026, 2,541 energy communities of all legal forms were recorded, while across Europe it is estimated that more than 8,000 are in operation. In Austria, one of the fastest-growing countries, more than 3,000 were already operating in early 2025. However, numbers do not tell the whole story – and differing national definitions make direct comparisons difficult.
Greece’s real problem is what these communities actually do and who benefits from them.
Out of the 2,562 MW of energy community projects that had been electrified up to April 2026, a mere 114.1 MW – amounting to 4.4% – concerned self-generation to cover the energy needs of their members. The remainder primarily concerns commercial electricity sales projects. At the same time, from January 2024 to April 2026, just 61 new applications for energy community projects were submitted, indicating a substantial freezing of development.
In the low and medium voltage network, the situation is even more striking: 56% of the requested capacity has been cancelled, mainly due to grid access problems. In Western Macedonia, precisely the region where the participation of local communities should be a central element of the just transition, cancellations are particularly high.
The state could have acted differently. The transition from virtual net metering to net billing created a long period of regulatory uncertainty, while the available electrical margin for self-generation is already approaching the 2 GW limit. Increasing it to 3 GW, with a clear priority for genuine citizen, municipal and small business communities, is a concrete solution.
What is also needed are stable rules, dedicated access to financing, technical support, storage and meaningful participation for energy-vulnerable households. These are precisely the measures now being requested by the European Commission from member states, proposing the utilisation of Cohesion Funds, dedicated financial instruments for communities and support for small photovoltaics combined with storage.
Greece, therefore, does not have a deficit of energy communities on paper. It has a deficit of genuine energy democracy. Success should not be measured by how many cooperatives have been established, but by how many citizens, municipalities and small businesses are truly able to produce and share their own clean energy.
