The Vila do Bispo Parish Council, Marco de Canaveses, will create the first Renewable Energy Community (CER) in the country, and plans to save about 5,500 euros per year on electricity bills with the measure, it announced Wednesday.
In a statement sent to Lusa, that municipality of the Porto district explains that the objective of the initiative is “to promote and implement the use of renewable energies in this territory and serve as an example to other municipalities.”
The project, which has the collaboration of Coopérnico, the Portuguese renewable energy cooperative, involves an initial investment of €32,000, but will mean energy savings of more than €5,000 per year.
According to the text, the The CER will allow you to save 900 euros on the electricity bill of the Gymnasium Sports Pavilion2,250 in the Casa do Povo, 850 euros in the headquarters of the Board, which allows the Vila Boa do Bispo Fire Department to reduce energy costs by 1,500 euros.
This is a fundamental step on the path that we want to take for the energy transition at the local level, involving local citizens and companies, while lowering energy costs for each of the CER members”, says the president of the CER in the text Vila do Bispo Parish Council, Miguel Carneiro.
The mayor says that the project will then be extended to local businesses and other citizens of the parish to “reduce their energy costs and make their economic activity and daily life more sustainable.”
The Vila do Bispo CER will be classified as a Cooperative of Public Interest, which, the text explains, will allow “the Board to provide administrative support to the RECwhile allowing the public and the private to cooperate, in the name of the public interest and energy democracy, in the management of a common good, energy”.
This classification also allows private entities (collective or private) to join public entities, to “manage energy jointly and democratically and without focusing exclusively on obtaining profits.”
Source: Observadora
