Legislation for Renewable Energy Communities and Citizen Energy Communities in Austria: Changes from the Legislative Draft to the Finally Enacted Law

Based on the European guidelines—the Renewable Energy Directive (RED) and the Electricity Market Directive (EMD)—legislation to enable Renewable Energy Communities (RECs) and Citizen Energy Communities (CECs) is currently being developed in individual European countries. In July 2021, Austria, as one of the first countries in Europe, enacted legislation on both, RECs and CECs. A previous study of Fina and Fechner provided a detailed comparison of the legislative draft for energy communities in Austria, published in March 2021, to the European guidelines. Strengths and weaknesses of the Austrian transposition were highlighted and discussed. Now that the enacted version of the Austrian legislation has been published, important changes from the legislative draft to the final legislation have been identified. Building upon Fina and Fechner, this work aims at supplementing the previous study by examining and critically discussing these changes in order to present the Austrian legislation on energy communities as enacted to an international readership.