Energy: ENEA establishes Observatory to promote Renewable Energy Communities

Promoting Renewable Energy Communities (CER), supporting local PAs and citizens in the phases of implementation and management is the objective of the ENEA Observatory comprising approximaately forty members, including research institutes, local authorities, associations, companies and professionals. The network, designed to promote a national development roadmap, also aims to identify the critical issues of the “CER supply chain”  at national, local and citizen level, collaborating with institutions to formulate enabling policies benefiting communities also through adoption of specific legislative and administrative measures.

Born in the ENEA laboratories at the “Kilometro Rosso” innovation hub in Bergamo, the Observatory covers four core areas: economic-financial, regulatory and administrative-legal, data acquisition-management and public information.

 “Although today they are the true protagonists of the new energy scenarios, CERs are still characterized by an alternation of lights and shadows, enthusiasm and perplexity”, said Nicoletta Gozo, researcher at the ENEA Smart Energy Division. “It is clear – she adds – that Communities add new potential players in the process that is leading the country towards one of the most important global objectives, decarbonisation. However, this result still represents a challenge that requires a radical change in production, management and use of energy as well as capacity for innovation and resilience. A change of pace key for achieving the transition objectives."

Presented for the first time at the Key Energy renewables fair, the ENEA Observatory was later at the center of an event in Milan, organized in collaboration with Anci Lombardia, Energia Media and MCE, which allowed us to start a new discussion on policy, tools, standards and regulations to increase knowledge and awareness of the protagonists of the CER supply chain.

It is estimated that around 54 self-consumption communities are active in Italy (17 CERs and 37 collective self-consumption groups^[1]) and almost a hundred have requested to be recognized. Their total installed power is approximately 1.5 MW, with the vast majority of plants active in northern Italy. As an objective for 2026, CERs should reach an installed power of 5 GW and it is estimated that by 2030 they could exceed 7 GW, i.e. covering approximately 10% of the national objectives for 2030.

As for CER, in addition to the Observatory, ENEA supports the institutions for the definition of the technical and technological aspects of the funding calls aimed at the promotion and dissemination of CERs at a national level and promotes activities to facilitate the exchange of experiences and the transfer of good practices to different territorial contexts.

The ENEA CER Observatory is part of the programmatic and financial framework of the activities envisaged by the 2022-2024 Three-Year Plan for Electrical System Research, project "Technologies for an efficient penetration of the electric vector into end uses, WP1 Smart Energy Communities".