Rural energy communities: tools to promote an inclusive energy transition

With the implementation of this project, we wanted to involve rural inhabitants, including those with reading difficulties, in the energy transition process of the European agenda, raise awareness...

With the implementation of this project, we wanted to involve rural inhabitants, including those with reading difficulties, in the energy transition process of the European agenda, raise awareness regarding the essential role that local energy communities can play in such a transition, and provide the training tools and know-how to increase knowledge on the structure, operation, and benefits of local energy communities in rural areas, in an inclusive manner. Beyond the dissemination and training objective itself, the project also had networking objectives on two different scales: planting the first seeds to create networks of local stakeholders who, in the immediate future, could put into practice the knowledge acquired in order to create the first energy communities in our areas and, on the other hand, setting up a working group that would focus on rural energy issues, exchange good practice, reinforce the partners’ work with specific experience, etc. The European dimension was essential to increase the efficiency of exchanges on this second scale.

The project managed to raise awareness and “put the word out there” concerning energy communities in areas where they had never been discussed before (apart from Italy, where some work had already been done). It involved local inhabitants in our workshops, but we were also invited elsewhere and so it reached target groups other than the ones initially set, including high school students, elderly students and the wider rural community, further away from our working areas. The members of the three organisations acquired new, valuable knowledge on a previously almost unknown subject and have become a reference in their immediate environments. This knowledge was successfully put into straightforward learning materials and, equally important, translated into easy-reading language by experts, which is giving the opportunity for a wider public to access them. The participation of many of the leading energy community members and experts in our workshops has been essential to convey the existing know-how to our target groups on the one hand and, on the other, to become part of relevant networks that will ensure our future work on the subject. For the French partner, this subject has now become a priority (which was not before).