In an interview with Energy Cities, Arturo Zea from the POWER UP pilot Valencia Climate and Energy Foundation, describes why the topic of community energy is a priority for Valencia. He also takes us back to how everything started with the first energy community in Valencia, in Castellar L’Oliveral. It is the very first energy community where the city makes it possible for energy poor people to be directly involved.
In 2021, the Valencia City Council announced an ambitious policy goal: to establish one hundred Energy Communities within the city by 2030.
The first energy community in Valencia – in Castellar L’Oliveral – has been launched at the end of January 2023. How did it start?
The initiative started back in 2020, when we could legally start working on collective self-consumption of renewable energy. The municipality wanted to pilot a couple of projects, using public and private roofs.
The whole process was led and facilitated by Valencia Climate and Energy Foundation. We launched a communication campaign to involve citizens from 2 different neighbourhoods and run a series of workshops, covering topic such as renewable energy (with a focus on PV systems), the existing legal framework for collective self-consumption and possible legal structures for energy communities.
Soon after, a couple of small working groups with 5-6 people created communities structured as non-profit associations. Since the group in Castellar had already identified a suitable public roof, their project moved forward faster. These groups had no previous knowledge or experience with the energy sector, so we made ourselves available to explain concepts and procedures carefully and as many times as necessary.
What was the main challenge you encountered to deploy the first project?
We did not have many other examples at national level that we could refer to. We had to deal with several barriers at technical and legal level. The most difficult one was the connection to the grid and the interoperability and exchange of information between DSOs (there are two mixed grids in Castellar, a unique case in Spain) and with energy suppliers.
There was no easy step, but in the end, we were successful, and we can use this experience to promote new community energy project and help the community in Castellar to grow and acquire new installations.
Tell us more about the members of this first community.
The founding members met during the participatory process and are still leading the project today. They are working people, most of them born and raised in Castellar. That is why participation costs were relatively affordable: 600€ per 0,50 kWp, meaning around 130€ yearly savings for each household. In Castellar there has always been a high degree of participation. We managed to convince the president of the neighbourhood association of Castellar, Empar Puchades – an activist at heart – to lead the Energy Community so they can take advantage of his existing connections. People trust her, so the community’s project was seen in a good light.
When the conditions to join the community were set (cost of the shares, contracts…) we organised a public presentation of the project. Neighbours showed a massive interest and we reached the maximum number of members in just a couple of weeks – there’s even a waiting list for the next installations!
Did you involve vulnerable households? If so, how?
The project had a Right to Energy approach: one of the main goals in the statute of the association is to fight energy poverty. However, given the complexity and the need to install the PV panels by the end of 2021 (to benefit from a regional subsidy) it was our Foundation who acquired several extra shares in the Community and distributed them for free among three vulnerable households living in Castellar. We identified them in coordination with the Social Services Department of the Municipality.
Next time, thanks to our involvement in the EU funded project POWER UP, we will try to include vulnerable households in the projects from the start, promoting a more inclusive and empowering approach.
Read the the full article.
