Our partner ADEE, SENDER’s Spanish pilot, approved the creation of the Local Energy Community at its last general meeting, modifying its statutes to start producing its own renewable energy and adapting to European directives on energy communities.
To achieve this, over 10% of its members attended the meeting and voted in favor of the creation of the Local Energy Community.
The energy community is looking for benefits on three levels:
- For its members, in the form of savings on their energy bills and greater environmental awareness,
- For the cooperative, which seeks greater stability and trust from its members.
- Locally and environmentally, by seeking out more renewable energy sources and increasing the community’s energy efficiency.
The Local Energy Community (COLMENA) is structured around the following activities:
To achieve all these objectives, the Energy Community has drawn up a strategic plan comprising the following steps:
- Encouraging the empowerment of cooperative partners and energy community members through personalized advice, energy awareness, training workshops and the promotion of self-consumption among community members in residential buildings.
- 3 photovoltaic production plants:
- A 100 Kwp plant is already in service.
- 0.75 Mwp planned for 2024.
- 4 Mwp plant expandable to 8Kwp over the next 5 years.
- Collaboration with local authorities to lease the roofs of public buildings.
- Long-term objectives (2030):
- Improve energy efficiency in the commune of Alginet by 20%.
- Reduce CO2 emissions from electricity consumption in the commune of Alginet by 50%.
First photovoltaic plant of COLMENA.
The model used by the Energy Community to achieve these objectives is as follows:
- All the capital investments are done by the cooperative.
- The PV plants production profits and energy efficiency are distributed between:
- benefits for the members
- amortization of the investment made by the cooperative in the PV plants.
- All the investments are done into proximity business.
- The members of the Energy Community are all the cooperative members.
- The energy Community cover the whole value chain of the energy sector.