RENALDO – Rural Development through Renewable Energy Sources

Innovative market models are important to ensure that a region’s transition towards renewable energy has beneficial impacts on the sustainable development of a local economy. Among them are so-called collective prosumer models – where energy cooperatives members are both producers and consumers of energy –, which have proven to encourage regional stakeholders in driving the energy transition forward. Given the lack of experience with energy cooperatives in Poland, lighthouse projects are needed to showcase how collective prosumer models can work, and which societal, economic and environmental related benefits can be created. These pilot projects in six selected municipalities can generate the necessary empirical knowledge to adapt existing regulatory and institutional setting in Poland.

As a first step, the project developed a handbook on setting up and operating energy cooperatives; this was based on good practices from Poland, Germany, and other EU Member States and was tested in two pilot communities in the provinces Podlaskie and Kuyavian-Pomeranian.

A second step aimed at further refining the intervention and implementing additional energy cooperatives in four other communities in Podlaskie and Kuyavian-Pomeranian. In parallel, RENALDO supported the selected communities in the development of business plans ensuring the profitability of an energy cooperatives.

Third, a session with the relevant stakeholders serveed to analyse the lessons learned from setting-up energy cooperatives. The findings supported adjustments of the regulatory and institutional setting and good practices disseminated to other Polish regions.

Finally, several events ensured the dissemination of the project results to political decision-makers from other Polish regions and interested communities.

The RENALDO project was made possible through financing of the Structural Reform Support Programme (SRSP) of the European Commission and the German Federal Ministry for the Environment (BMU).

RENALDO Project: Final Conference – EUKI