The energy transition is happening before our eyes. For many energy consumers, it is still an abstract slogan, high-sounding and distant. And that’s understandable, the average energy user doesn’t need to follow changes in the energy market.
→ It looks different for local governments and entrepreneurs. For them, the energy transition is a concrete opportunity to reduce energy costs, increase price stability, and become independent of the energy sellers’ market.
One of the key tools of this change are energy cooperatives.
An energy cooperative is an element of distributed energy, i.e., a model based on local energy generation sources that supply local consumers.
Key benefits:
- energy is produced locally, almost “next door,”
- no need to transmit energy across all of Poland,
- lower distribution costs,
- real savings for cooperative members.
There is one condition:
you must be a member of an energy cooperative to benefit from these advantages.
A not-so-obvious but very important argument for entrepreneurs and local governments:
The renewable energy source does not have to be located on the premises of the company or municipality. The generation installation may be located even two municipalities away, and yet the energy can still supply the cooperative members.
This opens up completely new possibilities where:
- there is a lack of land,
- roofs are too small,
- building structural conditions do not allow PV installation.
The answer is simple → To pay less for energy than the market offers. An energy cooperative makes it possible to achieve an energy price lower than the exchange price (SPOT), i.e., the current energy price on the wholesale market.
Importantly: no purchasing group, no tender, and no energy seller is able to ensure such pricing conditions as a well-designed energy cooperative provides.
An energy cooperative should be high on the list of solutions to analyze if you want to reduce energy costs in a company and cut a municipality’s spending on energy.
Short answer: it depends –
everything starts with a reliable analysis of the current state:
- energy consumption profiles (daily-hourly),
- existing contracts,
- number of energy consumption points (PPE),
- legal and technical possibilities.
Based on these data,
we have developed an analytical tool that allows you to quickly assess:
- whether a cooperative makes sense,
- what savings can be achieved,
- which cooperative model will be optimal for a given municipality or company.
The law clearly states:
3 legal entities or
10 natural persons. In practice, one or two entities are often missing.
Solution → In the cooperatives we co-create:
- we become a co-founding member,
- we often take on the role of cooperative leader,
- after establishment we handle: settlements, reporting, accounting, and formal administration.
The statute is one of the most difficult elements of the process. In practice:
- lawyers in municipalities and companies rarely know cooperative law,
- documents are sometimes incomprehensible even to future members.
Our statute:
- has already been verified by KRS judges,
- is written in language understandable to cooperative members,
- can be used in subsequent projects.
Each year, the cooperative must demonstrate that at least 70% of the energy consumed by members comes from its sources
Problems:
- lack of land and roofs in municipalities,
- capacities in companies that are too small,
- demand above 1 GWh per year = investments counted in millions,
- long administrative procedures (often over a year).
Our solution:
- we provide the missing energy,
- we know where, how, and with whom to produce it,
- we create cooperatives from 1000 MWh up to several GWh per year,
- we do it without investment on the municipality’s or company’s side.
The problems described above are common, which is why we created ready-made solutions that:
- save time,
- minimize risk,
- allow you to move quickly from analysis to real savings.
You can try on your own (trial and error), or you can commission us to create an energy cooperative that will bring
measurable savings to your company or municipality.
Based on a few key data points:
- we will calculate potential savings,
- we will prepare a scenario for establishing the cooperative,
- we will show how to achieve a lower energy price than the market price.
