Arroyo Alumbra

The objective of the project, promoted by the City Council together with MUTI civil association, is to enable the rural population of Arroyomolinos to play a specific role in the management of shared self-consumption facilities and to make energy a strategic sector for rural development and citizen empowerment.

Arroyo Alumbra is also a community of learning and mutual support. Its purpose is to ensure that no one is left behind in the ongoing energy and eco-social transition that we are experiencing, and to transfer its experience and model to other Andalusian, Spanish and European rural areas.

The creation process

Arroyo Alumbra’s journey began in 2019 with the celebration of the event “Alumbra. Energy from the Rural” in Arroyomolinos de León, Huelva. The idea of creating an energy community was launched in roundtables where several public institutions, local, provincial and regional governments, and social actors shared their input, based on the provisions for energy communities included in European directives of the “Clean Energy Package” and a manual for the promotion of energy communities in Spain released by the Spanish Institute for Energy Diversification and Saving (IDAE).

Despite the slowdown of the energy community’s participatory design process caused by the covid-19 pandemic, MUTI civil association, a founding partner of Arroyo Alumbra, launched an energy office. During this time, multiple alliances were established with other organisations: Greenpeace Spain, Aeioluz (Valencian energy education cooperative), and the Virgen de los Remedios ecoschool. These collaborations laid the foundations for the development of an inclusive rural energy community that would not leave households at risk of vulnerability behind.

With the rural school at the center of the initiative, a microfinancing process allowed for the construction of a photovoltaic renewable energy generation facility in the town. This installation will be integrated into Arroyo Alumbra as a collective self-consumption asset.

The School of Social Economy Foundation played a key role embedding the values of the social and solidarity economy into the energy community. The Andalusian Fund of Municipalities for International Solidarity (FAMSI) also played a fundamental role through a training programme for the design of the legal figure of the cooperative and the business model for the energy community. During the process, which brought together neighbors, associations and local businesses, the name of the community, “Arroyo Alumbra” was chosen and its statutes were approved at the assembly.