WORKSHOP “TOOLS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF SUSTAINABLE ENERGY COMMUNITIES”

What: Social Entrepreneurship Forum 2019 – Workshop “Tools for the development of sustainable energy communities”

Where: Impact Hub, Athens, Greece

When: 30th November 2019

How the story began:

The Social Entrepreneurship Forum organized for the sixth year in the row the annual open meeting of actors and enterprises active in the field of Social (and) Solidarity Economy. The forum was supported by Heinrich Boell Foundation, department of Greece, while the workshop was organized by Electra Energy Cooperative. Electra Energy Cooperative invited members of the ICCS-NTUA, specifically members of SmartRUE research team, to interactively present a sustainable model of energy communities (EnC).

The event:

At the event members of ICCS-NTUA presented a simple model of collective self-consumption that can be implemented in Greece, based on the existing regulatory framework. The model was presented step by step. All the required procedures in order to establish an EnC were explained. Introduced were also all the aspects (technical, financial and administrative) that need to be considered in order to implement a PV project that will cover citizens’ energy consumption.

During the presentation of the model, the participants were asked to actively participate by creating an “imaginary” EnC. Fifteen volunteers were asked to take decisions on some required issues for establishing the community. From this information various characteristic were calculated and presented – the PV park sizing, required capital, required shares of each participant and the economic benefits from the project. A fruitful discussion was initiated from the results.

The feedback from the participants was very positive.