It began in the small Catalan town of Taradell as a plan to provide local people with allotments where they could grow their own food.<\/p>\n
Four activists came together with the aim of promoting good environmental practices in local agriculture and business, as well as supplying renewable energy. The project, however, was about much more than growing vegetables.<\/p>\n
The town has a strong tradition of community action, and as the initiative gathered momentum, the activists formed a cooperative, Taradell Sostenible, which now has 111 members and supplies power to more than 100 households. These include some of the area\u2019s most vulnerable citizens, says Eugeni Vila, the coop\u2019s president. \u201cThe question was how could people with few resources join the coop when membership costs \u20ac100,\u201d says Vila. \u201cWe agreed that people designated as poor by the local authority could join for only \u20ac25 and thus benefit from the cheap electricity we generate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Taradell Sostenible have installed solar panels on the roofs of a sports centre and a cultural centre to supply electricity to the community, with funding from the government\u2019s Institute for the Diversification and Saving of Energy (IDAE), which is working to expand energy communities across the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re very proud of the fact that IDAE describes us as pioneers,\u201d says Vila. \u201cThe EU\u2019s Next Generation funding, which we got through IDAE, helped us to complete these two projects.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once they were up and running, they realised they needed more professional management, so in 2022 they combined forces with other local energy communities.<\/p>\n
Renewable energy is flourishing in Spain<\/a>, a country with no gas or oil and little coal of its own, but an abundance of sunshine. For years, solar installation was held back by the notorious \u201csunshine tax\u201d introduced in 2015. Rather than reward individuals for installing solar power, the government taxed them after the big power companies successfully argued that energy self-sufficiency amounted to unfair competition.<\/p>\n That tax was abolished in 2018, and energy self-sufficiency, mainly through photovoltaic panels, has increased 17-fold, according to the IDAE. The institute is now turning its attention from subsidising solar installations on individual homes to prioritising energy communities such as Taradell, with initial funding of \u20ac148.5m (\u00a3130m) earmarked for 200 projects.<\/p>\n The IDAE policy aims to bring cheap electricity to households suffering from pobreza energ\u00e9tica (fuel poverty) who cannot afford the upfront cost of installing panels. Photograph: Bloomberg\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Environmentalists have long advocated the spread of energy communities, in which solar panels on the rooftops of government buildings, warehouses and sports facilities supply electricity to nearby homes and business. Until recently, this was limited to a 500 metres radius, but that limit has now been extended to 2,000 metres \u2013 and it is taking off across the country, thanks to government support channeled through the IDAE.<\/p>\n The institute\u2019s policy aims to bring cheap electricity to households suffering from pobreza energ\u00e9tica (fuel poverty) who cannot afford the upfront cost of installing solar panels \u2013 typically \u20ac5,000-6,000 for each household.<\/p>\n The institute defines fuel poverty as low-income, energy-inefficient households where a high proportion of income is spent on energy supply.<\/p>\n As well as fostering the development of energy communities, the IDAE encourages the communities to talk to each other, to form a patchwork of autonomous but integrated groups. Taradell has now teamed up with two nearby energy communities in Baleny\u00e0 and La Tonenca.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve developed a formula to help people who are struggling to get by through incorporating them into a network that helps them to improve their situation,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019ve taken advantage of the EU Sun4All scheme to develop a system to assess who are the vulnerable families, and not just in terms of fuel poverty.\u201d The Sun4All project, which finished last year, was an EU project supporting solar power projects that helped low income families.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n The planet’s most important stories. Get all the week’s environment news – the good, the bad and the essential<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n On the other side of the country, 1,150km (715 miles) away, the island of Ons off Spain\u2019s Atlantic coast is also in line to benefit from the new IDAE policy. Ons, population 92, will soon be able to do away with the generator that has been its only source of electricity and replace it with solar power.<\/p>\n \u201cWith these subsidies, we\u2019re going to install solar panels on the local authority buildings to supply energy to the islanders, most of whom are elderly and vulnerable,\u201d said Jos\u00e9 Antonio Fern\u00e1ndez Bouzas, the head of the Atlantic Islands national park.<\/p>\n The Galician regional government has already installed solar panels on the nearby C\u00edes Islands, helping local businesses to dispense with diesel-run generators.<\/p>\n \u201cThese are protected areas and we want them to be self-sufficient in energy,\u201d Bouzas said.<\/p>\n In addition to supplying cheap and clean electricity, localised energy communities reduce the transportation costs and pollution associated with large solar and wind farms. They also make a lot of sense in a country where 65% of the population live in apartment blocks rather than individual houses.<\/p>\n