Spreading the word about energy communities across Europe!

Photo credits: The Atelier Project

In the scope of the Atelier project – an EU-funded Smart City project aiming to create and replicate Positive Energy Districts (PEDs) – stakeholders from Bratislava and fellow cities including Copenhagen, Budapest, Matosinhos, Bratislava, Krakow, and Riga came together for a one-day workshop on energy communities.

The workshop focused on sharing knowledge and experience on energy community development, with participants learning from each other and from presentations by experts from the Dutch research institute TNO and the LocalRES project.  During the workshop, TNO presented the lessons learnt from energy-community development in the Netherlands, including insights on community engagement, regulatory frameworks and the importance of involving all stakeholders in the process. 

LocalRES project was also presented in the workshop. Andrea Gabaldon, from CARTIF, shared the experiences of developing the energy community of Ollersdorf, which has become the first energy community legally constituted in Austria. LocalRES explained how the vision of the municipality to become 100% renewable in all energy vectors by 2040 was established, and the steps taken to involve stakeholders through energy communities. 

The workshop provided an opportunity for participants to learn from each other and to gain valuable insights into the development of energy communities. They shared their experiences, challenges, and successes in developing and implementing communities. The participants discussed the need for strong policy instruments and regulatory frameworks to support energy community development, as well as the importance of engaging with local communities to ensure the success and sustainability of projects.