The development of local energy communities in Spain is subject to public consultation

The Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (Miteco) has opened a prior public consultation process for the development of local energy communities. The objective of the consultation, which will be open until December 2, is to promote the active participation of the different actors in the energy transition to move towards a climate-neutral country by 2050.

The government’s pre-consultation includes 15 questions on the opportunities, enabling framework and challenges and barriers that currently exist for the development of local energy communities. The allegations can be sent to the email address bzn-comunidadenergia@miteco.es, indicating in the subject “Consultation Energy Communities”.

Miteco highlights that, in a context of economic reactivation after the health crisis, local energy communities can play an important role in the generation of economic activity and employment in the short term, not only directly, but also by the tractor effect on the different local value chains and through savings in energy costs.

Renewable energy communities

Local energy communities encompass two figures included in European directives: renewable energy communities and citizen energy communities. The former were recently regulated through RDL 23/2020, of June 23, which approved measures in the field of energy and in other areas of economic reactivation. This regulation responds to the European mandate to guarantee and facilitate the right of consumers to participate in renewable energy projects through which they can produce, consume, store or sell renewable energy, as well as share such energy within the community.

The preparation of this consultation responds to the objectives of the National Energy and Climate Plan (PNIEC) 2021-2030, which contemplates in its planning the development of an adequate regulatory framework that defines local energy communities and favors their development and proposes instruments to guarantee consumers the right to consume, produce, store and sell their own renewable energy through, among other instruments, the promotion of local energy communities, as well as specific measures aimed at promoting the proactive role of citizens in decarbonization.

The Long-Term Decarbonisation Strategy (ELP) also points out the importance of placing society as a whole at the centre of the energy system. And the development of energy communities also complements other instruments, such as the National Self-Consumption Strategy and the Storage Strategy.

Source: Smart Grids Info