Valle di Primiero: a workshop to take stock of Renewable Energy Communities.

Launched in January 2023, the COMMUNITAS project supports citizens in becoming active participants in the energy sector and offers a suite of tools to facilitate the creation, growth, and development of Renewable Energy Communities (RECs). Alongside seven other European pilot sites, Trentino plays a key role in this initiative, which aims to foster and support new RECs in the Primiero Valley. COMMUNITAS brings together 18 European partners, including ACSM S.p.A. and Fondazione Bruno Kessler (FBK), through its Center for Sustainable Energy. The project spans eight countries: Portugal, Greece, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark, Poland, and Croatia.

“Following the first public meeting in May 2023, the COMMUNITAS project returned to the spotlight in the Primiero Valley with a new participatory event, held on the evening of Thursday, June 12, at the Negrelli Hall of the Primiero Community,” explained Diego Viesi, a researcher at FBK’s Center for Sustainable Energy.  “The meeting showcased the progress of the project and the growth of local RECs, highlighting the milestones achieved and the concrete experience gained over the past two years.”

The evening opened with remarks from Simone Canteri, General Manager of ACSM S.p.A., who emphasized the initiative’s significance and the key role of the local area in the energy transition. This was followed by a presentation from Massimo Plazzer, representing the Autonomous Province of Trento (PAT), who provided an update on the national regulatory framework, shared the outcomes of the European ECOEMPOWER project—in which PAT and FBK participate to promote RECs—and presented an updated map of the Communities in Trentino. The core of the evening featured detailed presentations by Simone Canteri and Gionata Luca, a researcher at FBK. They outlined the COMMUNITAS project’s roadmap and activities, highlighting ACSM’s role as a facilitator in creating the Renewable Energy Communities in the Primiero Valley. They emphasized the collaborative work carried out with citizens, local institutions, and businesses.

“The project is building a knowledge base to provide users with technical, administrative, and legal guidance on RECs, making it easier to establish and expand this model,” Gionata Luca explained. “FBK, through COMMUNITAS, is also testing an innovative set of tools that leverage technologies such as IoT, Blockchain, and Cloud Computing to enhance citizens’ active participation in energy markets via RECs.  Citizens are also involved throughout the project in Social and Policy Labs, ensuring their feedback, needs, and expectations are taken into account.”

The second part of the event focused on real-life accounts from those who have successfully launched RECs in the local area over the past two years. Sebastiano Nicoletto from ESCO Primiero and Daniele Gubert from the Verd&Blu cooperative shared their respective experiences in establishing and managing local Communities. They spoke about key success factors, challenges encountered, and future outlooks. The event concluded with an interactive session designed to gather ideas, proposals, and suggestions from citizens and local stakeholders—aimed at fostering increasingly informed and shared participation in the energy transition.