The Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO) has opened two calls for grants for pilot projects for energy communities (CE IMPLEMENTA programme), endowed with 40 million euros, which will promote social innovation and citizen participation in renewables, energy efficiency and electric mobility.

Within the framework of the Spanish Recovery, Transition and Resilience Plan (PRTR), an incentive programme for individual energy community pilot projects (CE-IMPLEMENTA Programme) has been launched. The CE-IMPLEMENTA programme is part of component 7 "Deployment and integration of renewable energy" of the plan for the implementation of the Next Generation EU funds, which identifies energy communities as key actors in the energy transition.

Legal entities - public or private - that promote the participation of actors in the energy sector, who have not traditionally been involved, will be eligible for aid in five areas of action:

• Electric renewable energies
• Thermal renewable energies
• Energy efficiency
• Sustainable mobility
• Demand aggregation and management

The Spanish Institute for Energy Saving and Diversification (IDAE) will assess and award grants on a competitive basis and will cover up to 60 % of the eligible costs of the project. The two calls for proposals for energy community pilot projects opened on 1 February 2022 for one month; the deadline for submitting applications  is 12:00 noon on 1 March 2022.

More information is available here (in Spanish).