Renewable Energy Communities (CERs) bring together domestic users, businesses and public administrations to generate, share and consume clean, locally produced energy together. CERs allow communities to switch to clean and renewable energy, by allowing you to generate and store your own power, reducing dependence on foreign energy, benefit from a local Energy independence, and thus reducing the cost of energy. Those who participate in the Energy Community decide to rely on a sustainable development model, based on local sharing, which allows them to reduce their dependence on the national electricity system. In this way, the CERs are not only able to independently satisfy their own energy needs, but favor the creation of realities based on energy solidarity: the members of the CERs in fact share every phase of energy production, consumption and sharing, according to principles of social, economic and environmental responsibility.  

Energy Communities are made up of prosumers, who generate and use energy, and consumers, who consume energy. “Prosumers” could also be active consumers of energy because they consume and produce electricity.

Various types of prosumers exist: residential prosumers who produce electricity at home – mainly through solar photovoltaic panels on their rooftops, citizen-led energy cooperatives or housing associations, industrial and/or commercial prosumers whose main business activity is not electricity production, and public institutions like schools or hospitals.

Usually, a local business with a large rooftop space plays the role of prosumer. Install renewable energy assets like solar panels and produce a surplus of clean energy. The prosumer uses what he needs and shares the remaining excess energy with members of the local community.

Every member of the community, whether prosumer or consumer, benefits from a reduction in the cost of energy and therefore lighter bills. This happens thanks to the consumption of clean energy produced locally.

In short, consumers, prosumers, local communities, the environment and the network can benefit from energy communities!

Distributed generation (also called on-site generation or decentralized generation) is a term describing the generation of electricity for use on-site, rather than transmitting energy over the electric grid from a large, centralized facility (such as a coal-fired power plant). By generating electricity in smaller amounts closer to end-users, we can dramatically increase energy efficiency, reduce carbon pollution, improve grid resiliency, and curtail the need for new transmission investments.

Energy is produced close to where it will be consumed.

Energy storage equipment, such as batteries, and hydrogen help keep the internal grid that powers the community stable, storing energy when supply exceeds demand and feeding it back into the internal grid during peak hours.

Demand response is important for managing internal grid stability and involves reducing or shifting electricity use during peak periods to better match energy demand with supply.