Community energy campaigners have written to the EU Commission to demand competition rules support community energy.
The letter, sent to European Commission vice presidents Frans Timmermans and Vestager, calls on them to revise recent draft guidelines for climate and energy to favour support for community projects. The draft guidelines, they claim, does not give any mention of renewable energy communities and is not in line with the European Green Deal. As such, the guidelines will make it difficult for community energy projects to access public support schemes.
The coalition calls on the Commissioners to bring the guidelines in line with the REDII – the legislation that creates rights for community energy projects – and the spirit of the European Green Deal. Specifically, the campaigners call for specific provisions for renewable energy communities, “to make competition law a tool in support of a climate safe future, not a barrier to it”.
