Community Energy for Energy Solidarity

ended

Energy poverty is getting more and more poignant around Europe. According to the latest pan-European report by the EU Energy Poverty Observatory, 37.4M people were unable to keep warm in 2018, 33.8M had arrears on their utility bills, and 19% of households reported being uncomfortably hot during summer. Despite this issue being mainly addressed from the public policy perspective through measures that range from alleviation using social tariffs to subsidies to household refurbishment or purchasing energy efficient appliances, civil society plays a very significant and growing role. Communities have found different ways of getting together to fight energy poverty. Solidarity is the cornerstone of all these initiatives which have huge potential for replication. Renewable energy cooperatives (RESCOOPs) are the most democratic and oldest form of energy community: groups of citizens that get together in a democratic manner to achieve energy resilience, independence and sustainable energy generation and use. The CEES project identifies and analyses the most successful cases of community energy initiatives to tackle energy poverty in Europe, validates them academically and empirically, supports the overcoming of regulatory and financial barriers, and then creates a toolkit for EU replication through RESCOOPs network of +3000 energy communities, a formula which has proven very successful in the past. CEES will facilitate the adoption of behavioural and energy efficiency measures in households, create financial and non-financial support schemes to address energy poverty and empower community leaders (and organizations working in adjacent areas such as financial advice, health care or even fire and police services) to identify and deal with energy poverty, establishing quick and responsive networks. We expect to reach more than 19 000 energy poor households and trigger 2M€ of sustainable energy investment with savings of over 7,5 GWh/year.