Energy sharing within Dutch energy communities: An institutional analysis using Ostrom's design principles

An increasing number of energy communities are arranging energy sharing between their members. This allows them to self-consume electricity from their renewable generation assets through concurrent energy production and consumption, outside of the market. Drawing on Ostrom’s design principles for robust commons governance, we analyze how emerging Dutch institutional arrangements for energy sharing support or hinder successful governance as a form of commons. Our analysis revealed gaps in the emerging institutional arrangements across all of Ostrom's design principles. We find that: 1) Solidarity goals are supported by including non-investor participants and designing distribution keys with fairness in mind. 2) Local electricity concurrency and community self-sufficiency are facilitated by providing real-time information on community assets’ generation to prosumers and offering favorable grid tariffs, diversifying profiles of energy sharing participants and generation sources, and linkages to storage, heat networks, and mobility. 3) Autonomy of energy-sharing communities is limited by supplier dependencies and legal, technical and financial risks stemming from the electricity market. Enabling sharing with free choice of suppliers should not be obstructed through unfair charges on prosumers. 4) In locationally-constrained energy sharing (local concurrency within specific areas, such as based on grid topology), communities balance production and consumption within a ‘holon’—independent yet part of a larger system—while the mechanisms of successful coordination remain unclear. Our analysis identifies cross-level governance trade-offs and policy design choices for energy sharing implementation, informing ongoing debates on the roles of state, market, and community governance in a polycentric energy system.