The LIFE ISLET project marked the final stage of its three-year journey on the island of Brač, Croatia, during the international conference “Energy Communities in Practice”, held on 24–25 September 2026.
The event brought together European and national policymakers, regulators and institutional representatives, creating a valuable forum for dialogue with distribution system operators, local authorities, Energy Communities, and organisations working directly with citizens. After three years of work on small islands, one message emerged clearly: legal recognition is only the starting point. Energy Communities also need local capacity, workable procedures, viable business and energy models, access to financing and long-term cooperation between all the actors involved.
LIFE ISLET worked with three pilot islands Procida, Italy; Astypalea, Greece and Cres, Croatia and their experiences showed that there is no single pathway to building an Energy Community. In Procida, much of the work focused on stakeholder engagement and local facilitation. In Astypalea, the municipality played a central role in the specific context of a non-interconnected island. Cres followed another path, strongly influenced by administrative and regulatory procedures.
The experience of Cres showed particularly clearly that establishing a legal entity is only one step. After a first unsuccessful attempt, a second founding assembly took place in July 2025 and the association was finally registered in March 2026. Yet registration did not mean that the community was immediately ready to share energy. Business and energy models, governance, membership, financing and operational procedures still had to be developed.
This also highlighted one of LIFE ISLET’s main lessons: support is needed not only for renewable energy infrastructure, but also for everything that comes before it. Stakeholder engagement, technical assessments, legal preparation, business planning and project coordination require time, expertise and resources. For small municipalities and citizen initiatives, this pre-operational phase can become one of the main barriers to implementation.
Islands offer particularly valuable environments in which to test these models. Their strong local networks, clearly defined communities and specific energy constraints make them suitable places to experiment with solutions that combine local generation, public infrastructure and community participation.
As LIFE ISLET reaches the end of its funded period, its most important legacy may therefore be the practical knowledge created by its first communities. Future initiatives should not have to rediscover from scratch how to build governance, involve citizens, develop business models or work with regulators and system operators.
The next step is to turn this pioneer experience into accessible guidance, support structures and financing mechanisms, so that the next generation of island Energy Communities can start from what has already been learned rather than from zero.
