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Minigrids are expected by the UN Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All) initiative to play a significant role in ensuring universal energy access. Despite this, there are a range of technical, organisational, social and financial barriers to their successful deployment, including lack of community integration, unrealistic user expectations and poor local maintenance capabilities. Community Renewable Energy Minigrids (CREMs) are expected to increase community engagement and therefore potentially mitigate some of these problems, improving outcomes when compared to minigrids with other ownership and operation structures. CREMs are also likely to offer other important socioeconomic benefits and improved rural livelihoods. However, a range of challenges for existing CREMs are reported in the literature. Specific barriers include the need for extensive liaison (eg community engagement), technology choice risks, controversies around governance of benefits and, often, non-existing technical and organizational local capabilities. At this stage, it is not clear which implementation models or community capabilities are required to overcome these challenges. This paper will present a review of recent experiences, exploring the factors that influence the success of CREMs, which might require special input and attention by practitioners, donors, and community activists in order to deliver a sustainable and successful CREM.