Here’s how energy communities sounded in 2024

This is not a “best of the year” article. But with all of us being very busy non-stop, it is possible that you may have missed some of our monthly podcast episodes. In this past year we’ve spoken to so many passionate community energy advocates. From how to keep residents enthusiastic about community energy to public procurement challenges for local authorities we covered a number of big and burning topics. We talked to people across Europe, from Kata in Hungary, Efren in Spain to Niklas in Finland. Whether they are civil servants, activists or business men and women, they have a common goal: to produce energy locally, through fair governance and for the wider benefit of everyone living nearby. Reality is still complex and implementers have to cope with legal uncertainties, political power games or the eternal NIMBY.

Here’s another chance to catch up and to listen to the eight episodes that put the spotlight on people and places with exciting energy projects. Producing or sharing energy in a team, either as residents or with local authority or business participation is often an adventure. This is what makes each of these stories so invaluable. Learn from our interviewees and become unstoppable like them! Here are their stories in a nutshell:

• Carlo from Italy talks about the power of renewable projects to bring rural revival.
• We talked with Michal from Czech Republic about how to initiate collective energy action in a post-communist country and in areas with a deeply entrenched coal culture.
• Efren from Spain made the wonderful world of tendering contracts, technical specifications and award criteria quite easy to understand for laymen.
• With Kata from Hungary and Antonia from Greece we tried to define an inclusive city and how to guarantee fair access and good lives to all, no matter their income, race, religion, gender.
• Olaf from The Netherlands explains how neighbourhood conversations around the kitchen table led to the idea of a heat network owned by the residents.
• Chris from Greece amazed us with his planned urban agrivoltaics project involving people with mental health issues. To make this happen, his energy community closely works together with the municipality of Ioannina.
• Ugo and Franjo from a Croatian island are about to design a voucher model in cooperation with the water management company to allow residents to co-finance smaller solar projects.
• In the last episode we heard from Niklas and Jonas in Finland that a bad adventure with 1 or 2 vocal opponents managing to sabotage their project did not lower their determination.

These more than 211 minutes of energy community hope and inspiration were co-funded by the SCCALE 20-30-50 project (Horizon 2020 program).

💡If you know about people and amazing initatives in your city, may they be driven by the administration, by citizens or by an SME, please let us know. It would be great to give them a voice in our podcast. 📨 Drop a line to our podcast host Miriam Eisermann.

“City Stories” is a podcast by Energy Cities. It is for those who want to learn more about how cities go about with the energy transition. The challenge is big, but there are so many new, collaborative practices that emerge and that make this challenge fun and feasible. Each month we invite passionate European guests from different horizons and sectors who dedicate much of their time to making the transition more democratic. Each conversation brings out a city’s story as well as very personal opinions and motivations.