On 18 May 2022, the European Commission published REPowerEU, a plan that outlines key actions in order to reduce European dependency from Russian fossil fuel. Solar energy play a pivotal role with a full chapter, the EU solar strategy, dedicated to the fast upscale of its deployment to support energy independency of the Union.

A specific proposal of the strategy, to have at least 1 Renewable Energy community set up in each municipality above 10.000 inhabitants was at the centre of the debate in a workshop jointly organized by COME RES with DECIDE, EC2, POWERPOOR, NRG2Peers, UIPI and eCrew on the 30 September, following the European Sustainable Energy Week.

In a combination of presentation, panel discussion, marketplace and group debate, the event unpacked the regulatory and business aspects that at the moment are still preventing the full deployment of solar potential in EU Member states. Participants had the opportunity to learn more on possible approaches to the implementation of energy communities from the cities of Porto, Antwerp (a DECIDER) and Eklo as well as from the Energy Shift platform. Moreover, discussion with colleagues was initiated on the concepts of energy citizenship and the policy improvements needed to accelerate building renovation for energy communities.

The DECIDE pilot Enbro (Belgium) as well as DECIDERs KmO (Spain), Local Energy (Italy) and ClubE (Greece) participated in the exchange, sharing experience in their respective countries.

You can read the detailed report of the event HERE.