The European Commission grants 150,000 euros to the Zaragoza City Council to develop energy communities in the city

The European Commission has granted the Zaragoza City Council a subsidy of 150,000 euros to study, develop, and promote energy communities in the Spanish city, in partnership with CIRCE technology center as a project partner and coordinated by the Department of Urban Planning and Equipment. 

This grant line is part of the first call of the financial package managed by the NetZeroCities platform, which is within the European mission of the 100 climate-neutral cities by 2030, of which Zaragoza is one of the selected. The financial contribution will be used to launch pilot projects that develop, analyze, and design the promotion of the creation of energy communities in the city of Zaragoza. 

In this case, the project is developed with a partner, CIRCE technology center, which adds value to private entities within the urban ecosystem, one of the areas reinforced in the European objectives. 

The pilot focuses on developing governance mechanisms and the optimal implementation of Renewable Energy Communities. 

To this end, the Zaragoza City Council and CIRCE will carry out a series of activities focused on regulatory analysis in collective self-consumption and governance models around energy communities, characterizing generation and demand volumes, analyzing participation, and the impact in different participatory scenarios. 

From these activities, an optimal action plan will be obtained for the council's objectives. 

Finally, during the project, a best practices guide will be created where different cities will share the lessons learned to replicate each pilot's success cases in the other member cities of the consortium.

What will we achieve?

The project will last two years, with the Zaragoza City Council having a budget of 150,000 euros for its execution, which includes personnel expenses, travel, conducting surveys, and preparing workshops. 

“The most interesting aspect of our participation in this type of European project is that, although we are a public administration, we manage to generate dynamics with private entities, a collaboration that, on the one hand, positions the Zaragoza brand and, on the other hand, generates knowledge in the cities,” is announced from the European Funds Directorate of the Zaragoza City Council. 

For CIRCE, “We are proud to collaborate with the Zaragoza City Council, both in our role as a link between the administration and the business fabric, and in contributing to position the city as a pioneer in urban energy and sustainability projects, with all the co-benefits these will generate for the citizens,” adds David Rodríguez, Head of Public Programs of the entity. 

The initiative, in which Zaragoza participates as a pilot city, is intended to respond to the NZC Pilot Cities call and is a joint candidacy of the 7 Spanish cities selected within the Mission: Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Valladolid, Zaragoza, and Vitoria-Gasteiz, which acts as coordinator. 

The project's objective is the joint study of the needs and barriers that exist today in these cities regarding the energy rehabilitation of buildings. 

To this end, 7 independent but interrelated pilots will be developed to validate the innovations addressed in each of the cities. These innovations can be technological, business models, political initiatives, governance innovations, and financing models, etc.