The Community of Practice (CoP) in Italy aims to advance the energy transition by supporting municipalities and practitioners operating in this policy domain. The Italian CoP is coordinated by AISFOR in partnership with RETE ASSIST and from May 2025 has facilitated online meetings hosted on the Zoom platform. The main communication channel for the CoP will be a LinkedIn group where all members are invited to participate. This group will serve as the primary means for discussing, sharing knowledge, and generating common ideas about energy transitions, fostering a sense of community among members.
Members will have access to resources and tools ahead of each session to support their participation, ensuring they can actively engage in the activities. The meetings will last for up to 2 hours and will include an interactive segment where participants can share their thoughts and queries. Recordings will be shared after each meeting, allowing those who cannot attend to catch up on the discussions later. The CoP aims to empower municipalities and County Councils to learn and replicate the model designed in the ENTRACK project, fostering energy transition plans with a social perspective.
Reasons to join the Community of Practice:
- Access to Knowledge & Resources: Gain valuable insights, tools, and materials to support energy transition initiatives
- Experience Sharing & Learning: Exchange opinions, learn from peers, and replicate successful models.
- Networking & Professional Growth: Connect with experts, expand your professional network, and enhance your skills.
- Structured Discussions & Impact: Participate in interactive meetings that foster innovation and support community-driven energy solutions.
Join the Italian Community of Practice by scanning the QR code below:
CoP Meetings Timeline
1st CoP Meeting
20 participants – Introductory CoP Meeiting
2nd CoP Meeting
23 participants – One Stop Shops for Residential Building Renovation
3rd CoP Meeting
20 participants – Empowering Local and Regional Authorities for a Successful Clean Energy Transition: Addressing Barriers and Providing Policy Recommendations
4th CoP Meeting
24 participants – Renewable Energy Communities (RECs)
CoP Meetings
The 1st session introduced the ENTRACK Community of Practice, outlining its objectives, calendar, and collaborative format aimed at supporting local actors in advancing a just energy transition. A roundtable allowed all participants to introduce themselves and share their interests, fostering networking and highlighting diverse perspectives on energy transition challenges and opportunities. Through Mentimeter, participants expressed views on what a just local energy transition means to them and ranked priority topics for future sessions, in particular: citizen participation, partnerships with municipalities, energy poverty, energy efficiency.
The 2nd CoP Session explored OSSs as crucial tools to support vulnerable citizens and local administrations in energy upgrading, with insights and practical experiences from the EU Peers project, Piemonte Region, Parma OSS, and the Life-SMART project in Rome. Among the key lessons and challenges identified, participants highlighted the need for stable financial resources, institutional anchoring within regional energy plans, intersectoral professional competences, access to databases and documents, and sustained communication efforts to ensure OSSs’ long-term effectiveness.
The 3rd CoP session featured the LIFE22-CET-Step-WISE project, outlining its 30-month capacity-building programme supporting local authorities in designing and implementing Clean Energy Transition Plans (CETPs) through a digital toolkit, a Virtual Knowledge Office, structured training, and pilot actions. Moreover, they presented the findings form the Policy Brief “Empowering Local and Regional Authorities for a Successful Clean Energy Transition: Addressing Barriers and Providing Policy Recommendations“. Key challenges identified across EU and local contexts include financial barriers (high upfront costs and limited funding access), technological and infrastructure gaps, regulatory complexity, and social factors such as low awareness and skills shortages, particularly critical in rural areas. Policy recommendations stressed the need to simplify EU and national regulatory frameworks, strengthen funding and coordination mechanisms, and enhance local capacity, stakeholder engagement, and participatory governance in CETP development.
The 4th CoP Session focused on citizen-led Renewable Energy Communities (RECs) and energy poverty. Firstly, the Energy Poverty Advisory Hub presented its new technical assistance call supporting municipalities in addressing energy poverty through expert guidance. Secondly, two grassroots REC experiences were shared with two guest speakers from: Energia Nostra (Friuli Venezia Giulia), a small but resilient cooperative facing regulatory and incentive-related barriers, and KönCeRT (Trentino-Alto Adige), a rapidly growing community with over 400 members built through strong local engagement, energy desks, and school initiatives. The discussion highlighted that trust, continuous community involvement, and accessible local initiatives are key to success, while bureaucratic complexity remains the main obstacle to scaling citizen-led energy communities.