Develop winning business plans for your energy community

How to turn your energy community’s vision into a structured, investment-ready project?

How to navigate legal frameworks, engage stakeholders, and demonstrate impact?

Hosted on the Local Transitions Learning Centre, the new, free e-learning course Develop Your Energy Community Business Plan is designed specifically for energy community practitioners ready to take their projects to the next level. Expert guidance, practical tools, and inspiring European case studies will help you build a comprehensive business plan for your energy community.

A practical, flexible course for energy community practitioners

Develop Your Energy Community Business Plan is a self-paced course combining short videos, detailed reading materials, interactive activities, and guidance. It consists of 5 modules with 23 lessons, each requiring approximately 30 minutes to complete.

If Module 1 is ideal for newcomers to community energy or those who want to refresh the basics, as it covers energy community fundamentals and readiness assessment, as well as business plan’s strategic role, the other modules guide you through the complete business plan development process:

• Module 2: Defining your project scope – assessing local needs, exploring technical options, and identifying your community’s added value
• Module 3: Organisation, governance and stakeholders – structuring your community and building effective partnerships
• Module 4: Building the business plan – conducting market, legal, technical, and financial analysis
• Module 5: Implementation planning – creating roadmaps, assigning responsibilities, and setting up monitoring systems

Learn in your own language

The course is available in English and is automatically translated into the 24 official EU languages and more , ensuring accessibility for energy communities across all over the Europe: Albanian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Icelandic, Irish, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Ukrainian.

Start learning today to develop an efficient, well-structured energy community in your city!

Develop Your Energy Community Business Plan is a capacity-building programme produced by the EU LIFE-funded European Energy Communities (ENERCOM) Facility. The project aims to support at least 140 energy communities in developing viable business plans by 2028.

Although anyone can enrol, completing Modules 2–5 is mandatory for ENERCOM Facility beneficiaries. After completing the course, they will receive a certificate allowing them to submit their business plan via the European Energy Communities Facility beneficiaries’ portal.