This report analyses the financial and commercial business cases of the four pilot areas involved in POWER UP. Their pioneering work may be useful to other local authorities wanting to launch renewable energy services for vulnerable people. Being able to accurately model and forecast how energy activities will impact costs, benefits and risks for anyone involved is an important skill. Four different pilot projects from Italy, Spain, Belgium and Czech Republic show different approaches to integrate renewable energy solutions while addressing energy poverty.
The four pilots:
- In UCSA, Italy, municipalities invest in photovoltaic systems that have already been partially developed on public buildings, sharing energy with companies to donate the incentives to local families.
- Roznov’s (Czech Republic) model takes a slightly different approach: Here the municipality invests in a photovoltaic system for a social housing building, with the aim of reducing energy costs for residents through collective self-consumption directly generated by the tenants.
- The Valencia model (Spain) is based on a photovoltaic system in which citizens can participate by renting shares of the system and thus accessing self-consumption.
- The Eeklo model introduces the municipal collaboration with energy cooperatives to increase community involvement. The project focuses on wind energy, with the municipality investing in shares of a wind turbine to give vulnerable citizens access to energy at a subsidized price.
The approaches for the return on investment in these pilots reflect different stakeholder strategies and roles. They are described in detail for each of the involved municipalities. These approaches also lead to substantial differences when it comes to the impacts generated for each involved citizen. Given the different setups and sources of benefit, each model is also distinguished by different levels of replicability, engagement and participation of households as well as different levels of cost reduction.
Read how each municipality defined its business case and financial model around energy services addressing people in vulnerable situations.
