On Chalki Island (Greece) - a small municipality in the Aegean Sea and Greece’s first “Gr-eco island” - local leadership has transformed citizen hesitation into collective action. With proactive communication and public engagement, the island’s energy community now has 178 members, with demand exceeding capacity.
Sustaining operations and scaling up comes with ongoing needs, but a transparent approach to engendering local trust has been vital in Chalki. Local champions like municipalities can thus foster credibility for energy communities.
Energy communities can enable the development of local communities in cities and regions reducing energy poverty and boosting green job opportunities. Crucially, energy communities help further citizen involvement in local energy transition. The Horizon EU-funded ENPOWER project, in which ICLEI Europe is a partner, recently hosted a policy session as part of the European Week of Regions and Cities “Close to You” programme, exploring how digital tools can empower local actors, make energy communities more inclusive, and connect local innovation with EU-level change.
The ENPOWER project rests on a three-pillar approach, where social, technological, and business innovation intersect to activate citizens in energy communities. Project pilots in Austria, Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and replicators in Hungary and Spain have been testing tools such as energy sharing, and consumer-activation apps. These tools drive down carbon emissions by generating clean energy in proximity to consumers, and nudging users of the system to shift consumption to windows with high renewable energy availability, avoiding the carbon-intensive peaks. However, fostering trust is a prerequisite for these digital solutions to promote inclusivity in energy communities.
Chalki Island - one of ENPOWER’s pilots - presented their experiences during the policy session. They showcased how public buy-in and trust in the energy community paradigm was cultivated through the leadership of local authorities.There, the energy community is integrating renewable production through photovoltaics, with community participation.
A personal touch enables citizens to participate in energy communities, while automation through digital tools simplifies participation. A seamless user experience can help to manage the complexity of energy systems; ENPOWER’s Irish pilot supports the Citizen Renewable Platform, which enables users to self-declare consumption, from which DSOs can extract or verify data. User onboarding to the platform has proven challenging, and local representatives have stepped in to help, as an older age profile can be a deterrent to usage. Luckily, the energy community model ensures solidarity, and education for members builds trust, leaving no one behind.
Over the last half decade, energy communities have taken on a bigger role in the energy landscape, with more pilots, clearer regulation and a clear acknowledgement of their social importance. Energy communities, including those that invest in technology, have tremendous potential to reduce reliance on state support, enabling communities to become more autonomous, resilient, and technologically advanced contributors to the energy transition. Intermediaries, such as municipalities, can make a difference in how successful energy communities are locally.