With the entry of the new law and regulation to facilitate collective self-consumption (RD 244/2019), we must be aware of the importance of not leaving behind families with fewer resources in the change of the energy model, which will fight against climate emergency and can help us move towards a fairer society.

These families would be especially benefited by a collective self-consumption installation, since costs for each family are reduced compared to individual facilities. In addition to the environmental benefits, the residents would see savings in the cost of their electricity supply and at the same time it is an act that reinforces energy sovereignty, since it reduces the dependence on large companies that are part of the oligopoly that manages the Spanish electricity sector.

The project

“Impulso de Comunidades Energéticas” aims to address the challenges mentioned previously in a specific municipality, with the aim of collecting information from their experience, suggestions and methodologies that could be replicable to the rest of municipalities throughout the Spanish State.

The municipality of Sabadell has been selected for the project to actively participate from the Housing, Environment and Social Services departments, in addition to proposing a community of neighbors to carry out participation activities, committing to follow up on it.

A series of meetings have been held with the selected neighborhood community, the Neighborhood Associations of the City Council, social entities and the departments of Housing, Environment and Social Services. The local Som Energia group has also participated in some of the meetings.
In these, it was not only intended to inform and train attendees about collective self-consumption and its possibilities, and trying to break some false myths about photovoltaics, but also to collect information thanks to the active participation of the attendees: needs, doubts, weaknesses, strengths, threats and opportunities, according to the points of view of the different actors involved.

Results

Thanks to all the information collected, communication materials have been designed to promote collective self-consumption, offering technical support and proposing practical solutions to bring civil society and the departments of social services, housing and the environment of the City Council closer together.

On the one hand, an informative triptych for citizens, solving the most general doubts (how much can it cost, which steps to follow to make an energy community, how to establish an agreement between neighbors, or how benefits/savings are shared, for example).
On the other hand, a detailed guide on collective self-consumption addressed to technicians of the Sabadell City Council, where more emphasis is placed on the technical aspects of the facilities. Also, information on the mechanisms available for the City Council to promote the proliferation of collective self-consumption, proposals for complementary actions for the city council to bring self-consumption closer to citizens and opportunities offered by the fact of working interdepartmentally to detect communities capable of becoming energy communities.