Emergence and prospects of digital mediation in energy communities : ecosystem actors’ perspective

Background Energy communities (ECs) hold out the promise of cleaner and more flexible energy systems through self-generation, demand response, and storage. Digital mediation plays a pivotal role within the EC ecosystem, which is a set of autonomous organizations coordinating and engaging in joint value creation activities by facilitating energy generation and consumption, coordination, and information and knowledge sharing. Although the extant literature has stressed the potential role of digitalization in empowering ECs and citizens, there remains a lack of comprehensive empirical studies and theorization on how ECs can benefit from digital mediation and develop a digitally mediated EC ecosystem. Thus, this research explores the current benefits of digitalization for ECs, and how the ecology of actors envisions the role of digital mediation in scaling and strengthening the EC ecosystem. Results Based on 22 interviews with EC representatives and the ecology of actors (i.e., stakeholders in the ecosystem) in Finland, our results underscore that digital mediation supports ECs in monitoring and controlling their operations and in addressing demand response and trading through data retrieval, exchange, and optimization, so contributing to better decision-making. The existing ecology of actors envisions a developed digitally mediated EC ecosystem that can enable the sharing of experiences, peer-to-peer support in planning phases, and the operations of communities. Conclusions This study contributes to the prior research by identifying the benefits of digital mediation within the ecology of actors. The findings of the study demonstrate that the early stages of EC ecosystems are characterized by a loosely connected ecology of actors, rather than a fully developed EC ecosystem. In doing so, this research highlights the crucial role of platformization in the EC context. EC managers should explore and develop mechanisms to observe the emergence of EC ecosystems, lead the responsibilities for coordination, and determine their community’s objectives and business model, utilizing digital platforms to evaluate prospects. Governments should consider providing incentives and implementing a favorable regulatory framework to encourage new actors. They can be at the forefront in developing digital platforms and collectively defining a shared vision of digital transformation for ECs.