Community renewable energy cooperatives emerge from North West Europe in an effort to organize the supply of renewable energy, while at the same time empowering sustainable development of local communities. Emerging community energy co-ops often lack the ability to become part of the energy transition. They often face barriers: lack of financial strength, technical and management knowledge. This timeline provides a visual aid to enable prospective ECCOs to easily access the tools they need for initial development. It demonstrates how to successfully develop and run an ECCO whilst being committed to learning, training and collaboration of people.
Citizens take part in local initiatives to bring community and policy awareness to develop their community renewable projects.
The Emergence phase allows target groups to develop good communication and organisation management. They also go through legal and business forms with technical structuring such as evaluating the territory environment and signing a legal land leasing commitment as well as financial structuring such as meeting potential partners, handling expense budget.
The Development phase leads into the Founding of the project society where strong communication and concertation towards citizens and public bodies are significant. The advanced training is connected to the technical ongoing analysis and validation, concerning the technical committee and required technical management studies. This phase is where you have to prepare and submit a technical file for administration approval, leading into the preparation for the financial mobilisation for the construction phase which will progress the project into the consolidation of the financial plan.
The post development will mainly consist of assessments. ECCO will provide masterclasses, that will help them set up a business plan as well as getting through the development maze while going through an in-depth valuation assessment of the risks. The community should be taking part in citizen financial mobilisation and project management studies. The group must fundraise for the bank loan that is needed in the construction phase which will proceed into the land leasing contracts and the signing of the construction papers.
During the construction phase, communication on the construction site and regular work visits will be significant in establishing good project management and essential for the preparation of the operation monitoring. This marks the inauguration of the operation of your renewable project. Citizens and providers will help in environmental monitoring. Financial management accounting must be carried out to manage the expense being done in the technical monitoring.
Ongoing communication in operation is essential for the facilitation of the group participatory dynamic. This includes retaining strong bonds with citizens and taking the compensatory measure. It is essential to maintain a constant relationship and good communication with the residents of the project.