Inspiring Examples and Best Practices

About

The first and largest renewable energy cooperative and supplier in Italy, Ènostra has played a crucial role in the creation of energy communities and is involved in the establishment of several others across Italy. With an annual production of over 3 GWh generated by the cooperative power plants and over 35 GWh of electricity supplied per year, Ènostra has built valuable expertise that can benefit new energy communities.

Mission

Ènostra aims to to develop and spread the use and production of energy in a conscious, sustainable and participative manner through a sustainable energy model, cooperative, resilient and based on the exclusive use of energy from renewable sources.

Activities

Ènostra carries out services and activities for the community creating opportunities for participation and involvement of individuals and social networks in favour of the energy transition from the bottom up. They produce and purchase energy from renewable energy plants, favouring production companies linked to local communities and promoting the growth of the share of energy from renewable sources in the national energy mix and then supplying it to its members and clients.

They also invest in the construction of new renewable production plants through collective capital and offer their members efficiency services, creation of turnkey solutions for energy saving (photovoltaic, storage systems, heat pumps, charging stations) and tools for monitoring consumption.

Distinctive Good Practice

In the spirit of cooperative principles, Ènostra offers a comprehensive five-step framework for creating an energy community, including feasibility study and stakeholder mapping, community engagement and membership campaign, legal consultancy and establishment of the legal entity, installation of renewables plants, and registration of the energy community for the acknowledgement of the premium tariff. Currently, ènostra is involved in the creation of around 30 energy communities, including Villanovaforru and Ussaramanna.

Barriers & How they were addressed

Ènostra faces the challenges of creating something that did not yet exist in Italy: a cooperative selling electricity that also aimed to become financially sustainable. Soon, after observing other examples of energy communities in Europe, they realized that they needed to expand their activity to al also producing renewable energy. They then merged forces with Retenergie, which had been producing (but not selling to end-users) RES electricity since 2008.

Ènostra was created at a difficult time for the renewables sector in Italy, just after the termination of the main feed-in-tariff scheme for photovoltaic generation. Subsequently, regulatory uncertainty had been the main exogenous factor having a negative impact on the cooperative challenging them to cope with regulatory uncertainty and adapt to contingencies.

Benefits to Participating individuals

Enestro acts as a bearer of the interests of the bottom up, such as those of local administrations and energy citizens, the true protagonists of this new energy scheme.

Their founding values ​​include sustainability, sharing and active participation, the same values ​​that guide a renewable energy community.

Because we are committed to going beyond energy and proposing the renewable energy community also as an activator of collective actions not only related to energy, which revitalize local communities and promote inclusion.

Media:

• What is an energy cooperative and what does ènostra actually do?