When Goliath embraces David: Italian and Finnish utilities as intermediaries in energy community development

Abstract

This study examines the emerging role of incumbent energy utilities as intermediaries in the energy community (EC) sector. Some energy utility companies in Europe have recently begun developing EC projects for community groups, but little is known about the nature and rationales of this new business or its influence on the niche. In this paper, we explore this emerging phenomenon from a company perspective through a comparative case study of two energy utilities active in the EC sector: the Italian Sorgenia and the Finnish Keravan Energia. We conducted semi-structured interviews to examine these companies' EC-related business activities, motivations, and expectations. We found clear business rationales and several types of business operations, many of which supported the emergence and development of ECs. The majority of these operations provided individual citizens, projects, and the EC niche with various functions, which we argue can be understood as intermediation. However, our findings suggest that although utilities could play an increasingly important role in developing and managing new EC projects, their support is not a silver bullet for resolving all challenges associated with scaling up the EC niche. Overall, our study demonstrates incumbent firms' potential to perform intermediation in sustainability transitions, which we argue is important for both intermediation and incumbency research areas.