The Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO), through the Institute for Diversification and Energy Saving (IDAE), has definitively resolved the first call for the program of aid to Community Transformation Offices (OTC) for the promotion and dynamization of Energy Communities (CE OFICINA) with the allocation of the 20 million euros planned to a total of 79 projects spread throughout much of the national territory.
Of the total amount granted, EUR 1,333,028.01 relates to seven projects
in Castilla-La Mancha, including: the Campollano Business Park (Albacete), the Federation for the Development of the Sierra and Mancha Conquense (Cuenca), the Provincial Environmental Consortium of the County Council of Albacete (Albacete), the City Council of Ciudad Real, the Mancha Júcar Centro Association (Albacete) and in Toledo the city council of the capital and the municipality of Burguillos.
The program seeks to facilitate the creation of new energy communities of all kinds (citizens, businesses, industrialists, etc.) with dissemination, advice and accompaniment measures, which pave the way and extend the general knowledge about this cooperative formula of production and consumption of renewable energy, as well as promoting measures of energy efficiency, demand management and sustainable mobility.
The resolution of the call with the full allocation of the 20 million enabled – NextGenEU funds channeled through the PRTR – reflects the great reception of this line of incentives, with more than 200 requests that doubled the available budget. Likewise, the projects selected show the growing social interest in the generation and consumption of collective energy and in the instruments that, like the OTC, serve to promote them.
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATIONS
Local, regional and other administrations have participated in this call for proposals. By volume of aid, 77% of the proposed beneficiaries are public bodies, compared to 23% in the private sector. And also in numerical terms, most of the 79 projects selected (50) have a public nature, either of municipalities, supramunicipal entities such as groups of municipalities, deputies, councils, or even set their radius of action in the whole of an autonomous community.
Despite this predominance, the participation of the private sector and civil society is also notable, with a good number of initiatives promoted by SMEs, non-profit entities, associations and companies of the social economy.
| CCAA regional | Requests | Total proposed grant of Aid |
| Castile-La Mancha | 7 | 1.333.028.01 |
Another relevant factor is that 73% of the subsidized offices (58) will work in municipalities of demographic challenge and/or just transition.
SOCIAL AND INCLUSIVE IMPACT
The constitution of the OTC will have a direct impact on employment, associated with the professionals who will provide the services in the office, but will also generate a tractor effect of the economy associated with energy services in their areas of influence, by activating the constitution of energy communities.
In addition, OTCs will contribute to a more inclusive ecological transition through three lines of action:
· Empowerment of new actors in the energy sector, accompanying them –among other issues– in the activation and dynamization of energy communities of all kinds (citizens, business, industry…)
· Expert advice on projects of construction and operation of energy communities: technical, administrative, financial or legal, but also social, facilitating the processes of debate and participation that characterize these cooperative formulas of production and consumption of renewable energy
· Training and dissemination on energy communities, to extend knowledge about this formula, maximizing the opportunities it offers in the democratization of energy generation and consumption.
ENERGY COMMUNITIES, KEY PLAYERS
The program of promotion and training of the OTCs is synergistic with other calls of the PERTE-EHRA and, in a very particular way, with the CE Implement lines, also managed by the IDAE, with an endowment of 80 million and which, for the moment, has already awarded 40 million, activating more than 70 projects of energy communities throughout Spain.
The energy communities are marked as one of the priorities and objectives of the PNIEC both to achieve the objectives of reducing emissions and increasing the participation of renewable energies in the energy system, and energy efficiency, and they have a specific measure in the plan, of which this line of aid is part, as well as the CE Implements program. It is also fundamental to the achievement of the measure “citizenship in the center”, included in the plan.
Likewise, the PRTR considers energy communities as key players in the ecological transition and foresees their promotion and development through a specific reform within component 7 “Deployment and integration of renewable energies”. Specifically, the C7.R3 “Development of Energy Communities” reform of this component will promote an “Ecosystem of Support for Energy Communities” whose ultimate goal is the creation and consolidation of energy communities, through a three-phase approach and complementary support mechanisms.
The first two phases, Learn and Plan, seek to activate participatory, informative and informative processes, as well as the legal constitution of these figures. The third, Implements, in addition to other actions, the promotion of demonstration projects with geographical, technological and social diversity to eliminate barriers to entering the market and validate business models and possible innovations at a technical and/or social level. The development of these phases is complemented by the creation of Community Transformation Offices.