The Extremadura Energy Agency Consortium (AGENEX) and the county councils in the region explained the new model of local energy communities. AGENEX held together with the County Councils of Caceres and Badajoz, two conferences on 'Energy Communities in Municipalities of Extremadura', in order to promote the social, economic and environmental advantages of this new local energy model. These conferences were held on July 6 and 7, in Badajoz and Caceres, respectively, and were aimed at local entities and citizen groups interested in community energy projects, such as energy recovery from waste, purchase, generation and shared marketing of green electricity, among other energy services.
In the sessions, information was given on the different legal, technical, and regulatory aspects of its implementation, and success stories were shown, such as the first experiences in Extremadura and other cases of emblematic successes of different regions. Likewise, the Association of Spanish Agencies for Energy Management (EnerAgen) presented the current situation of the projects at a national level.
The local energy communities are legal entities, public or private, that are grouped and involved in the production, distribution and/or use of energy, in a totally open and voluntary method with the aim of offering environmental, economic, and social benefits to the local community instead of having a lucrative purpose, with decision-making within these communities being totally democratic. They are often confused with collective self-consumption, a photovoltaic energy generating plant that is shared among several consumers directly, without the need to become any special entity. Unlike this, the local energy communities are constituted as legal entities, where citizens (individuals, companies, or municipalities) come together as end-users of energy, to generate and market energy among all those who are associated, without proximity restrictions.
The conference presented the Extremadura Action Plan within the framework of the European project AgroRES, 4th call of the Interreg Europe program co-financed by the European Regional Development Funds (ERDF), with the aim of encouraging the creation of Energy Communities with citizen and municipal participation in rural areas of Extremadura.
You can find the press release and conference materials here.
