ECOEMPOWER IN A NUTSHELL
Driving Sustainability in Europe’s Green Transition
Energy communities are central to the EU Green Deal strategy. They have the potential to help reducing greenhouse gas emissions noticeably and quickly, as half of all European Union citizens could be producing their own electricity by 2050, meeting 45% of the EU’s energy demand (Delft, CE Delft, September 2016). Energy communities require stronger local actions and citizen-owned initiatives. The ECOEMPOWER project – funded by the EU Life-program – promoted and supported the establishment of local offices (One Stop Shops) for the set up and development of Energy Communities in Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece and Italy.
Energy communities have gained increased attention, since they promote collective approaches to the energy transition by actively involving citizens and small businesses. Such communities come in many shapes and forms. They encompass various organizational models, legal forms, activities, and technologies for renewable energy production, ranging from wind and solar to bioenergy and hydroelectric power. They engage in joint generation and supply, energy sharing, energy services, cooperative electro-mobility, fostering social and community empowerment and more. The benefits of these collective energy initiatives include strong environmental benefits, improved public acceptance of renewable installations, reduced energy poverty, enhanced social cohesion, energy autonomy, access to innovative financing schemes, and provision of distributed flexibility for improved energy network resilience. Yet, the model is relatively new and a wide-spread establishment of such communities needs capacity building and empowerment.
How ECOEMPOWER fostered such an EU-led energy transition?
The ECOEMPOWER project provided support to energy agencies and regional authorities in triggering and facilitating energy communities. It established One Stop Shops (OSS) where citizens and stakeholders in different regions can now access integrated services and digital tools for setting up energy communities. The OSSs raise awareness about the benefits of collective energy initiatives, assist in project feasibility analysis, business model development and capacity building. Additionally, they foster networking between energy communities, public authorities, and technology providers.
The regional One Stop Shops for energy communities were developed and tested with the active participation of 5 regional organisations in Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece and Italy. Together with those organisations, 15 Pilot sites were actively involved; each of them corresponding to one local energy community project according to the EC definitions of Renewable or Citizen Energy Communities (RECs / CECs). Pilots were chosen to represent various stages of development of the energy communities and their associated needs.
ECOEMPOWER within LIFE
ECOEMPOWER – ECOsystems EMPOWERing at regional and local scale supporting energy communities – was a three-year project, funded with more than 1 million EUR in the LIFE program and sub-programme Clean Energy Transition. This sub-programme continued to support the delivery of EU policies in the field of sustainable energy, in particular, the European Green Deal, the Energy Union (2030 energy and climate targets) and the European Union’s 2050 long-term decarbonisation strategy.
The LIFE Clean Energy Transition sub-programme aims at facilitating the transition towards an energy-efficient, renewable energy-based, climate-neutral and -resilient economy by funding coordination and support actions across Europe.