According to the recast Renewable Energy Directive (RED II), member states (MS) of the European Union (EU) are supposed to take out assessments of barriers for and potential of renewable energy communities in their countries (RED II, Art. 22 Para. 3). The European legislator has not specified this provision, i.e. the content and form of these assessments has not been clarified (yet). It is only clear from the legal text that these assessments should be the basis of the “enabling framework” (RED II, Art. 22 Para. 4) that EU MS shall provide. The project aims at developing a template for the assessments. In this background paper, we review existing literature on barriers to and drivers of the development of energy communities. We propose a typology that can be used for assessments in all EU MS. This typology functions as the basis for a very short survey. The respective questionnaire is freely available in different versions and three languages. This second background paper is part of a study on a model assessment of potential and barriers to the development of renewable energy communities at the national level, commissioned by REScoop.eu.