Between 16 and 17 November, Vilablareix and La Vall d’en Bas towns welcomed 140 people to talk about energy communities.
The conference was divided into three big blocks: energy communities promoted by public administration, industrial energy communities and energy communities launched by citizens.
During the first block, Diputació de Girona explained the technical, legal and financial assistance provided to the covenant of Mayors signatories. Up to date, 140 projects have been supported by Diputació de Girona and 262.272,63€ have been invested to develop technical studies. During this section, Cristina Corchero from Bamboo Energy presented the RESCHOOL project and how the flexibility of energy consumption and demand will be an opportunity to develop energy communities beyond the self-consumption model.
During the second block, some projects of energy communities in industrial areas were explained. For instance, the project called “Manresa Il·lumina: An energy community in Bufalvent industrial area, that will install 1MW of solar panels and share the energy production o in accordance with their energy production” (Manresa Il·lumina). Another interesting project was presented by the Mayor of Sant Antoni de Vilamajor in the Province of Barcelona, the project plans to promote an agrivoltaic plant to combine local agriculture activity and local energy production for the neighbours.
Finally, during the third bloc, the participants discussed about how energy communities can become a tool for social transformation. During this session several tools for energy communities developed by projects funded by regional, national or European projects were presented (insurances, software, platforms, etc).
