CER Greenland

Cimbrian Plateau, Italy

Greenland is a community cooperative operating on the Cimbrian Plateau, an upland area between mountains and pastures, far from the valley-floor centres. Distance from urban services is the very reason the cooperative exists: it runs a range of activities and services for residents, working closely with local public bodies and other local businesses.
Energy has been added to this set of activities. Greenland is already operational as an Energy Community, has a quite large number of members and owns some installations of its own, but it needs to broaden its membership base further, particularly in the areas adjacent to its original ones, and to equip itself with more sophisticated financing and sharing models.
One of the options it is working on is an installation financed with the direct involvement of the local population. Before proceeding, however, an economic feasibility study is needed to indicate which areas resources should be concentrated on. The project's economic sustainability is an essential condition for CER Greenland.

Every pilot answers the same questions. Read how it joined AGRICOM, what support it receives and what it aims to achieve.

pilot PROFILE

How did you find each other / what attracted them to Agricom?

Greenland is a member of the Federazione Trentina della Cooperazione and heard about Agricom through this channel. As it is already active as an Energy Community, it saw participation not as a starting point but as a growth tool: the project allows it to work on broadening its membership base and on financing models, the two key aspects for strengthening its presence in the area in the future.

Why did you choose them among other applicants?

Greenland was chosen because, as a community cooperative, it already has everything it takes to be a recognised driver of local development — social and economic, not just energy-related. The assessment weighed above all its ability to make the most of the support received: in-house skills already in place, a willingness to experiment and a well-established relationship with its local community, which makes involving the population in investments a realistic prospect.

Which experience with renewable energy or energy communities do they have?

Greenland already has direct experience of energy management: it is active as an Energy Community and owns some generation installations. Precisely for this reason it knows the limits of its current set-up — a membership base that needs broadening and financing and sharing tools that are still underdeveloped — and it knows where to act.

What problems will you help them solve - technical planning, business planning, outreach and matchmaking etc.? How?

For Greenland the central issue is the investment model. What is needed is a differentiated scheme allowing the local population to take part in building a collective installation, possibly combined with storage technologies. For this to work, financial participation has to be built on a genuine understanding of what the Energy Community is worth to the local area, not on returns alone. Upstream of this, an economic feasibility analysis is needed to indicate which areas of development the available resources should be concentrated on.

What do you expect to achieve for the pilot by the end of the project? Technically, financially, policy-wise, with regards to community building and sustainability for the region etc.

Greenland is aiming at substantial local development, in which new investments and new installations can lead to greater economic solidity and in turn act as a driver for further growth.

What risks do you see and how will you mitigate them?

One risk is failing to involve livestock farmers in the idea: they need to be shown the initiative's benefits — not only the economic ones, but above all the environmental and social ones — because the risk is that the decision to join an energy community is weighed on financial return alone. A second risk, common to all energy communities, is that the bureaucratic and administrative side of the required procedures takes on disproportionate weight and ends up slowing down, or in some cases blocking, their development, or at least people's enthusiasm.

How does the local policy influence pilots' possibilities? Is there anything they would like to realize but it is (currently) impossible?

From a policy standpoint, the single most helpful measure would be to facilitate the allocation to renewable energy communities of publicly owned surfaces suitable for hosting generation plants — the roofs of schools, sports facilities, municipal buildings and other public assets — through streamlined and transparent procedures for granting their use. A second priority is for public institutions to promote renewable energy communities more actively, not merely as a technical instrument for generating electricity but as a tool for local development and for strengthening community participation, with information and awareness-raising initiatives aimed at citizens and businesses alike. Lastly, it would be valuable to entrust local authorities and territorial bodies with the possibility of directly managing part of the energy resources available in their area: keeping decisions, and the resulting benefits, as close as possible to the communities that host the installations.