Community benefit funds for energy infrastructure: Paving the way for public engagement and sustainable development?

Considerable infrastructural changes are required within energy systems globally to meet the policy ambitions associated with the energy transition to a carbon neutral future. Engaging with citizens and communities and providing community benefit funding are emerging as key energy policy measures to support infrastructure development and to achieve an increase in public participation in transition processes. Such approaches raise interesting questions in relation to consent, procedural participation, and distributive justice. This paper addresses a key gap in the literature by asking the research question “how do different structured approaches to community benefit funding support community development and wider sustainability goals?”. To answer this, we present an empirical analysis of three cases, in which different strategic approaches to community benefit funding are implemented for electricity network upgrades using Ireland as a case study. The results presented here apply not only to electricity grid infrastructure but also provide useful energy policy insights for other infrastructure developments that form part of the energy transition, in particular for wind energy and solar photovoltaic developments, where community benefit funding is increasingly implemented. Through an in-depth and rigorous methodological approach, the empirical data reveals community perspectives on the supports required for the utilisation of funds and suggestions for their effective management. Drawing on the results, the paper also makes policy recommendations to better enable communities to take advantage of opportunities provided by community benefit funding and the energy transition more broadly.