What is community energy and what are the benefits of sharing electricity?

Community energy is a system in which citizens, municipalities, or companies—i.e., communities—generate energy from renewable sources and share it with each other. It is a completely new model for the energy market. Until now, the market has been highly centralized, with a few power plants generating electricity that is then distributed to households and businesses. Now, production is being decentralized.

Anyone can get involved in community energy. Individuals, groups of neighbors, companies, or municipalities. Either as a producer who shares the energy they produce with others, or as a consumer who simply joins the community and purchases clean energy from producers.

This is a huge opportunity, for example, for municipalities, which can install photovoltaic power plants on the roofs of their offices, cultural centers, etc., and then share the electricity produced with citizens, companies, or non-profit organizations in the municipality.

Benefits of community energy
Community energy is an inevitable step towards energy transformation and a mass transition to clean energy. Its main advantages are:

Greater energy self-sufficiency
Thanks to community energy, people and businesses will not be completely dependent on traditional electricity supplies from the distribution grid. In addition, the price of shared electricity is determined by the members of the sharing group themselves – it can be significantly lower than that of the supplier. However, it is still necessary to pay the regulated component of electricity, which accounts for approximately 50% of the total price of electricity.

Better use of the potential of renewable sources
Many homeowners are unable to consume all the electricity generated by their photovoltaic systems. Thanks to community energy, they can share it with other people, such as family members, and thus fully utilize the potential of their production.

Environmentally friendly
Community energy is based on the production of primarily clean energy from sources that will never run out – the sun, wind, or water. It therefore contributes to decarbonization and accelerates the transition from fossil fuels to low-emission and zero-emission sources.

Strengthening the community
Each sharing group decides for itself how much money it will charge other members for the electricity produced. This can be free of charge or for less than the cost of traditional electricity supplies from suppliers.

This allows community energy to help economically disadvantaged households. For example, a municipality can share cheap energy with seniors or people who live alone and spend a high percentage of their income on energy.

Any profits from the sale of energy can then be reinvested in the community, for example in further energy infrastructure.