There are more than 30 energy communities currently operating throughout Italy: an innovative territorial model which provides for adherence to forms of self, consumption e energy exchange, in adherence to ecological transition which has taken off globally.
The data, disclosed by Legambiente, today helps to bring the country closer to the virtuous examples that come from Northern Europe, where this phenomenon has already assumed a certain importance for some time.
However, even if in Italy the model of energy communities it is still in its infancy, there are several realities that have already joined this new opportunity. Among the most recent projects it is possible to point out the one that started, with the support of Sorgenia group, in the Lombard municipalities of Turano Lodigiano and Bertonico, where various photovoltaic systems have been built on the covered areas of some public buildings, which today ensure the production, self-consumption and sharing of 100% green energy.
What is meant by energy community and what benefits it offers to the territories
An energy community is a socio-economic model focused on local energy exchange, which reduces recourse to the national electricity system, favoring all those processes centered on sustainable development.
These are real associations, which include companies, local public bodies, private citizens and commercial activities, united by the desire to adhere to the principles of circularity and an energy model based on sharing.
Specifically, in the energy communities, all the subjects involved, in line with a principle of active participation in the various energy processes, they are committed to acquiring infrastructure – mainly photovoltaic systems – to contribute to the production of renewable energy. This causes the participants to become part of a single large system of production, exchange and consumption of green and sustainable energy, in an innovative experience spread at a local level.
It goes without saying that the creation of an energy community can ensure a whole series of advantages for the territories concerned. Let's go environmental benefits, related to the reduction of energy consumption from fossil fuels, ai economic benefits, closely connected to the reduction of procurement costs, up to social benefits, supported by the promotion of models of collaboration, based on participation, cohesion, but also on the acquisition of greater awareness.
Networks and renewable energy: innovations to support energy communities
An energy community is based on the use of renewable energy production facilities that can be individual or collective.
In the first case, these are solutions installed solely by private individuals - such as, for example, photovoltaic panels placed on the roofs of residential buildings - in the second, however, they are systems intended for the production of energy, for collective use at a local level, as solar or wind power plants.
Furthermore, in order to optimize the management of all distribution, accumulation and consumption processes, energy communities rely on Smart Grid, innovative systems, which can be integrated with existing infrastructures, to transform the electricity grid into a intelligent system. A Smart Grid allows, in fact, to connect the subjects participating in the system through the highest ones digital and communication technologies, so that all the processes that take place in the network are always coordinated and monitored.
Naturally, in order for any user to become part of the system, he must install aenergy boxes, a device which, by connecting the electrical system to the central network, establishes a constant exchange of information with the Smart Grid. The implementation of this complex allows access, at any time, to extremely advanced management logics, which facilitate real-time control of all those processes which help to enhance the supply chain Energy.
The legislation in favor of energy communities
The phenomenon of energy communities, now also supported by the Milleproroghe Decree 162/2019 in compliance with the European Directive RED II 2001/2018, which recognized its legal value, is the son of a ferment that, more and more often, pushes consumers to become part of that decarbonization process necessary and inevitable.
The aim is to keep pace with the strategic objectives established at European level for climate and energy and become an active part of that roadmap which, by 2050, will allow individuals to do without fossil fuels.
