Samos Energy Community

The creation of the energy community

Electra Energy began the development of the energy community with a two month networking process, reaching out to all relevant stakeholders of the island, like the local university, the two municipalities, big businesses, important NGOs, civil society groups and individuals with a strong social standing/many connections. This process involved many one-to-one zoom calls, e-mails and phone calls. Having outlined the idea of setting up an energy community in the island and garnered some provisional interest from people, we started engaging stakeholders at the national level (Center for Renewable Energy Sources) and the international level (REScoop.eu).

After about two months we set a date for the first open workshop and started advertising on local radio and TV stations, as well as promoting paid ads targeted to people living in Samos.

Following the first workshop, we held three more workshops in the range of the next two months, where we increasingly dug into a more detailed analysis of what an energy community is, the associated roles, rights, and responsibilities. Thus, the group progressively evolved into a smaller “core” of members who are interested in founding the community and bear some extra initial responsibilities. In parallel, we have been storing (with consent) the contact details of all the individuals who participated in the previous workshops, so once the community is legally constituted, the Board of Directors can engage with these people again.

Until the end of 2022 Electra Energy will keep supporting the community with the following actions:

1. Becoming ourselves members and thus participating in general assemblies and key decisions
2. Helping create a business and strategic plan
3. Helping prepare, fund and build the first project (100 kwp solar park)