EnGreen, in collaboration with the EU-funded REC-HUB (Rural Energy Community Advisory Hub) project, has supported the establishment of C.E.R.A. (Renewable Energy Community of Antrodoco) in a small town in central Italy. The C.E.R.A. was established in September 2022 with some founding members and supported by the Municipality of Antrodoco.
The final design of the Renewable Energy Community (REC) of Antrodoco aims at providing sufficient technical and economic elements to assess the costs associated to public-owned renewable generation plants, to be built on municipal surfaces or made available to the municipal administration through lease agreements and/or surface rights on private roofs. It also provides the necessary details for the purposes of the permitting stage.
The REC project is based on energy generation calibrated to the needs highlighted by public, private and commercial entities that have expressed interest in participating in the REC as Consumers by providing utility data and privacy consent for their use.
The municipality of Antrodoco benefits from a favourable geographic location for the exploitation of renewable resources and thus for the installation of green energy systems as the public assets consist of several buildings that enjoy good exposure to both sun and wind. In addition, the municipality has several hectares of forests currently used for civic and commercial purposes, which could provide biomass for cogeneration plants.
In terms of town planning, it is evident that the small size of the village would be extremely favourable to achieving maximum effectiveness of any distributed energy initiative, since the municipality spans over 5 neighbourhoods. In addition, within the municipal territory, suitable areas have been identified for the installation of a woody biomass cogeneration (combined heat and power) plant, to be integrated with photovoltaic systems placed on roofs outside the historic centre constraint zone.
