Energy Communities VS Energy Poverty | SYN-Energy (CommonEn) Event
Athens, Greece – 18 June 2024
Impact Hub Athens and Electra Energy successfully concluded the “SYN-ENERGY” CommonEn project with an event that aimed to highlight the collaborative/community solutions and tools developed to fight energy poverty. The event, held at the Impact Hub Athens, brought together representatives from municipalities, energy communities, institutions and NGOs focused on promoting sustainable development and social justice.
The event started with a welcome by Dimitris Kokkinakis Co-Founder of Impact Hub Athens, who stressed the importance of the partnership between the two organizations, with the support of the Bodossaki Foundation, to create a practical pilot project for the mitigation of energy poverty. Ioanna Angelaki from Electra Energy presented an overview of the SYN-Energy CommonEn project, highlighting its role in empowering local energy communities to identify and connect with vulnerable households, with the support of municipalities and NGOs, to address energy challenges at the local level.
The SYN-ENERGY programme covered the costs for four households to join local energy community projects in Ioannina, Crete, Athens and Lesvos, providing free electricity for 25 years. This system is ten times more cost-effective than the subsidy policies implemented at government and European level.
Keynote speaker Alice Korovesi from INZEB presented an overview of the phenomenon of energy poverty, defining it as the lack of access to basic energy services needed to maintain a basic and decent standard of living. In Greece, 34.1% of households face payment arrears on utility bills, 18.7% cannot keep their home sufficiently warm in winter, and 26.3% are on the verge of energy poverty or social exclusion. These statistics underline the need to tackle energy poverty in the country. Alice stressed the importance of moving to new models to combat energy poverty, taking into account the complexity of the problem, including infrastructure, financing and education on consumption.
SYN-Energy CommonEn also presented a comprehensive toolkit designed to support municipalities and energy communities in identifying and integrating vulnerable households. This toolkit includes all the necessary tools, legal documents and procedures for the integration of energy vulnerable households in collective virtual energy offsetting projects. The goal is to reduce energy bills for these households by around 80,000 kWh in 25 years, which corresponds to significant financial savings.
The panel, moderated by Dimitris Kokkinakis, included statements on creating solutions on a large scale, leveraging the common agenda and the dynamics of energy communities and institutions/municipalities. The Mayor of Moshatos-Tavros Andreas Efthymiou and Maria Margosi from Collective Energy led the discussion on the practical applications of the toolkit, engaging participants in the challenges and opportunities they faced during the pilot phase, and further analysing their strategy for energy poverty mitigation.
The Deputy Mayor of the Municipality of Athens, Nikos Chrysogelos, stressed the importance of accessibility to green tools and funding for citizens and the need for a top-down approach (governance to the region/city) and bottom-up to create modern and effective interventions and strategies. Sandy Fameliari from the Hyperia Energy Community stressed the role of cooperation in promoting solutions for energy equity and sustainable development, emphasizing that the green transition must be fair, leaving no one behind, referring to the quote of activist Chico Mendes: “Ecology without class struggle is just gardening”.
The event concluded with closing remarks, reaffirming everyone’s commitment to continued support for energy communities in their efforts to create a more inclusive and sustainable future.
The SYN-Energy CommonEn initiative has achieved significant results, including the identification and integration of vulnerable households into energy communities, the organisation of training and information workshops, and the promotion of policies that support virtual energy offsetting. These efforts have led to meaningful actions that address energy poverty while promoting gender equality and social inclusion.
For more information on the SYN-Energy initiative and upcoming events, visit [Impact Hub Athens] (https://www.impacthubathens.net) and [Electra Energy] (https://www.electraenergy.gr).
July 2024
- How do we make our energy communities more inclusive? (July 2024)
This briefing note is based on the comprehensive Inclusivity Guide, which was produced under the European project SCCALE203050. While the full Guide offers a wealth of highly useful examples from across Europe, this note focuses on practical, immediately implementable, and already implemented suggestions for Greek energy communities.
For more info: [Impact Hub Athens] https://www.impacthubathens.net) and [Electra Energy] (https://www.electraenergy.gr).