Successful Workshop “Energy Communities, energy in citizens’ hands” @ NTUA


The Smart Grids Research Unit - Smart RUE of ECE-NTUA in collaboration with ELECTRA Energy cooperative organized a workshop “Energy Communities, energy in citizens’ hands” on the 18th of April 2019 at the Ceremonial Hall of NTUA.

Local energy communities are tools for the transition to a more democratic and decentralized energy system that focuses on the action of citizens, local and regional authorities as well as their synergy and partnership toward the sustainable degrowth. The Energy Communities model, although quite widespread in northern Europe, is quite unknown in Greece, with few successful initiatives mainly emerged in recent years. This arises several questions such us: What are the best models?, What are the benefits that energy communities provide?, What is the legislation framework? among others.

The aim of the workshop was to discuss these questions and to highlight sustainable models for the establishment of Energy Communities in Greece, taking into consideration the current legislation and regulation framework in collaboration with relevant experience from existing initiatives.

The event brought together relevant stakeholders from different sectors. The first part of the workshop focused on the new legislative framework with presenters from The Ministry of Energy, the Hellenic Electricity Distribution Network (HEDNO) and the Depository Bank of Greece. The second part was dedicated to social innovation and community energy best practices, methods and tools.

More than 150 people participated at the workshop. Municipality of Rafina in collaboration with Smart RUE created a H2020 COMPILE’s corner within the event venue where participants had the chance to be informed regarding the project’s scopes and visions. It also supported knowledge exchange of the projects through the Smart RUE presentation.