Energy communities? They are mostly unknown. A confirmation comes from a survey by Ipsos according to which, at the end of 2024, only 12 per cent of Italians had heard of energy communities and only 48 per cent clearly understood the scope of this highly original innovation, aimed at expanding the audience of territorial actors called upon to contribute to the decarbonisation and divestment of fossil turbo-capitalism.
Renewable energy communities are voluntary aggregations of citizens, parishes, universities, research centres, third sector entities, public administration and Small and Medium Enterprises that decide to tune in to the wavelength of integral ecology. In concrete terms, it means that all public and private entities inscribed in the geographical perimeter of the same primary cabin decide to cooperate in the production, consumption and exchange of clean energy to meet their needs.
The goal is to undertake integrated processes that weld social sustainability with environmental and economic sustainability. From this point of view, energy communities represent a powerful tool for energy literacy and point to collective paths of participation and redistribution of wealth. It should be remembered, in fact, that today, in the absence of a decoupling between fossil fuels and renewables, our exorbitant utility bills (with energy poverty rising sharply) depend on the fluctuating price of gas, which heavily influences the energy market that would be much more bearable if the price were based on the increasingly positive performance of renewables.
Investing in energy communities by going to put solar panels on all existing roofs would not only be right, but also cost-effective. And the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security, after the first year of experimentation, realised that the NRP resources (2.2 billion euros, with non-repayable grants of up to 40 per cent) aimed at the creation of energy communities in inland and mountainous areas with populations of less than 5,000 were in danger of remaining unused due to the structural inability of smaller urban centres to manage such articulated projects. So it not only extended the transmission of projects to November 2025, but also expanded the pool of beneficiaries by raising the population threshold to 30,000 for the municipalities concerned.
Although today there are several “macroscopic” experiences that operate or attempt to operate within the perimeter of the so-called “market area” to maximise the economic dimension, it is and will still be the “bottom up” experiences that will make the difference, those that will hold together proximity, solidarity and sustainability, in the evidence—as Pope Francis reminds us—that “no one is saved and will be saved alone, because everything is connected and we are all in relationship.”
The first projects carried out by Ecofuturo—such as the CER born around the Cellole Monastery of the Religious Community of Bose or the CER in Vizzolo Predabissi built by the Vizzolese furnace with the intention of providing workers with green fringe benefits in the key of generative corporate welfare—but also those realised or in progress with the technical support of ESCO and many freelancers testify that another Italy is possible. And that innovation can be synonymous with participation and vision, hybridising technologies and anthropologies, efficiency and hope.
From Val d’Aosta to Sicily, from Piedmont to Emilia Romagna, from Latium to Puglia, the initiatives promoted by municipalities and dioceses and by businesses and third-sector entities (many of which are shown in RSE’s new interactive map), in which photovoltaics are increasingly being combined with other sources of supply and storage systems, describe well the widespread desire for renewable energy to reinforce co-responsible cooperation and sustainable innovation.
