Energy communities are an important vehicle to deliver a resilient recovery for Europe

The Community Power coalition wrote a letter to the Frans Timmermans, European Commission’s Executive Vice-President the European Green Deal and Kadri Simson, European Commissioner for Energy, calling for support to an economic recovery that ensures our society and our local communities are more resilient and fairer in the long term.

The coaltion asked the European Commission to:

• Promote and finance community led local development as a means to support a just recovery;
• Provide specific support to citizen-led renovations under the Renovation Wave;
• Provide easier access to EFSI and EIB investment tools for energy communities;
• Earmark financing for renewable energy communities in the renewable energy financing mechanism for EU-wide projects;
• Set up a designated financing facility (e.g. under H2020) and a secretariat for energy communities;
• Make all government bailouts of industry conditional on being used to immediately start the transition to decarbonise their operations, and include a trajectory to reach climate neutrality by 2030;
• Support feed-in tariffs and other financing schemes for energy communities in economic stimulus packages;
• Ensure member states have the support and resources they need to transpose the Renewable Energy Directive and the Electricity Market Directive in a timely and adequate manner.

Read the full letter to learn more