In Spain, two private energy companies account for 80% of the country’s energy market, and green energy suppliers are scarce. In December 2010, 157 people decided to try to produce their own renewable energy, and set up Som Energia.

Some members signed up with the aim of doing something to create a post-fossil fuel economic order and experiment with new forms of democracy. Some were not happy with their electricity supplier, and many were already involved in other cooperatives or other political initiatives and were interested in the energy issue.

In January 2011 Som Energia started to apply for the necessary permits and soon after entered the market as a non-profit cooperative committed to producing 100% renewable energy from hydroelectric, solar, biomass and wind power. Its first project was a 100 kW solar project on an industrial building in Lleida. The installation started in early 2012 and by April it was fully functional. Eight more projects then got underway. Around 5000 members invested €11 million. At present the cooperative produces 10% of all its supplied energy, while the other 90% comes from certified green energy producers.

Board members and members of the technical team.

Today Som Energia collaborates with over 300 municipalities – 160 of them contracted it directly as their electricity supplier. Every member can share their membership with five others so that they do not have to pay the deposit fee of €100 – helping provide green electricity to people on lower incomes. Som Energia also collaborates with villages with less than 500 inhabitants, which can contract Som Energia without paying the €100 entrance fee.

Seven years after the cooperative started it has 44,600 members throughout Spain and 69,619 clients receiving 100% renewable energy – figures that continue to increase. In May 2016 through its project Generation kWh, a collectively owned solar field was set up – the first of its kind in the country – currently supplying 1,300 households. Its revenue amounted to €30 million in 2017.

The post Girona, Spain: Cooperative breaks the mould to provide renewable energy appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Xse emerged when different organisations and individuals identified energy-related problems affecting local populations, including fracking, the managing of hydroelectric dams by private corporations and extremely high voltage power lines, and the building of a pipeline through Catalonia to transport gas from Algeria to Europe. It also wanted to challenge government obstruction of renewable energies, and collusion with companies that creates some of the highest electricity prices in Europe.

Resistance to Spain’s dominant energy model has existed for years, but associations, groups and individuals from all over the Catalonian territory came together for the first time at the Day of Action for a Change of Model towards Energy Sovereignty in June in 2013. A few months later the Xarxa per la sobirania energètica (Xse) de Catalunya was formed to create an energy future based on democracy and social control of energy production, sustainability and, decentralization and being rooted in Catalonia.

Xse works through four ‘hubs’ or active local committees (Barcelona, Girona, Tarragona and Mallorca) and most of its resources come from member organizations. Its ‘energy municipalisation’ working group aims to re-municipalise the power grid inspired by German models, such as those in Hamburg and Berlin. It also works with lawyers specifically to analyse the regulations of the Spanish energy sector to study the possibility of shifting to a municipal energy model. This municipalist proposal has been largely supported by civil society organizations, individuals and political parties.

The Catalonian climate change law, advocated together with the Climate Justice Movement and adopted this September, includes a ban on fracking in Catalonia, the dismantling of nuclear power plants and a proposal to create a fossil-fuel-free Mediterranean. This law is nowadays suspended by the Spanish Constitutional Court.

Volt 4, group photo.

Moreover, one of their main annual activities, el VOLT, gathers dozens of activists weaving networks around the catalan territory, inspired in the Oligotox tours of Latinamerica, claiming environmental and social justice for the global and local Souths from a ecofeminist perspective.

“It is truly impressive the wide range of organizations that are engaged in the network and how much they have managed to accomplish in a very short period of time (less than 5 years!), including passing several municipal and provincial laws and regulations.”
– Lorena Zarate

Would you like to learn more about this initiative? Please contact us.

Or visit xse.cat

Transformative Cities’ Atlas of Utopias is being serialized on the P2P Foundation Blog. Go to TransformativeCities.org for updates.

The post Catalonia, Spain: Building a powerful regional network for energy sovereignty appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Errekaleor Bizirik

Errekaleor Bizirik is a project based in Gasteiz that is founded on the ideals of self-determination and communal life. It is a neighborhood that we have reclaimed from gentrification and real estate speculation and is now called home by over 150 people.

We organize ourselves using an assembly process, which allows us to build the overarching ideas of the project and to coordinate the many activities that are taking place in the neighborhood. Our project is based on the fundamental principles of self-management (autogestion), food sovereignty, feminism, Basque cultural reinvigoration, horizontal organization, and emancipatory culture. We regularly have concerts, movies, workshops and lectures, art expositions, and much more in order to encourage and create space for free cultural expression in Gasteiz.. All these events take place in the spaces we have built together in the neighborhood, such as a concert hall, theatre, social center, and more.

We have a 5-acre community farm and a bakery where we grow produce and bake sourdough bread, both for ourselves and for individuals who live in other parts of Gasteiz who want to know the true quality of their food. We also have free Basque language classes in our social center and a sports center where anyone can come to play pelota (a traditional Basque sport), participate in our boxing classes, or try out acrobatics. To build ties with other cooperative organizations, we have a printing shop where we create various types of pamphlets and books in collaboration with other organizations in the region.We have built a recording studio for local bands, where they can record for free and not tie themselves to labels or contracts. In Errekaleor Bizirik we have created these spaces, and many more, in order to continue to bring life into an abandoned neighborhood, creating a neighborhood full of life for all.

Energy Sovereignty

We are immersed in a system that requires a constant consumption of energy in order to propel constant economic growth. In an era where we have proven ourselves incapable as a society of rejecting fossil fuels, we have also reached the limits of our possible oil production. Peak oil will arrive in the coming decades, and we expect the same for uranium. As climate change effects clearly show, we are nearing the physical and biological limits of the planet, destroying the global ecosystem. The symptoms of this crisis go by many names: the energy crisis, the social crisis, the ecological crisis. But these are just symptoms, and the disease remains the same: capitalism.

In Errekaleor we work towards a different way of living. In a world where things are meant to be thrown away, we have spent four years turning rubble into homes, weed-filled land into gardens, and empty streets into a community. We have done this under the broad banner of self-determination and self-management. Now the time has come for energy sovereignty. Luckily, in Errekaleor the sun always shines! To accomplish this new task, we want to install around 550 solar panels in order to cover the energy needs of our 150 inhabitants, a process that will be accompanied by a large decrease in our consumption of energy overall and the use of alternative systems of refrigeration and water heating. We will do this in our communal way, which is to say that these solar panels will be accessible equally to all residents of Errekaleor Bizirik, and will be accompanied individual and DIY projects such as our new solar showers and bicycle machines that generate extra electricity for our communal living spaces.

This plan is organized to centralize the solar panels in the space that has the most sun, and to equally provide energy to all residents. With this, we will create the largest energy self-sufficient and off-the-grid space in both Basque Country and Europe. We want a renewable and ecologically-friendly neighborhood. We believe in creating a new model for energy independence. Will you help us accomplish our dreams?

Click here to support this crowdfund

Want to know more?

Webpage: www.errekaleorbizirik.org

Facebook: Errekaleor Bizirik

Twitter: @Errekaleor – Errekaleor Bizirik

Youtube: Canal Errekaleor Bizirik

Email: [email protected]

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