US

The Cable – Solidaritat Energetica is a project of the cooperative of INSTA – Environmental Legal Services, a cooperative with more than 10 years of experience, specialized in advice, legal defense and consultancy in environmental law, as well as in the management of environmental conflicts and participation processes, preparation of environmental studies or territorial analysis.

THE CHALLENGE

Currently, the predominant relationship model between citizens and energy is characterized by a limited ability to act and make decisions on the part of the consumer, who ends up adopting a fundamentally passive role. We are therefore faced with a citizen dependency within the energy system, in which there are a series of actors who, in general terms, define and dominate access to energy. Faced with this reality of the system, hopeful possibilities are beginning to materialize to understand all the actions around energy—mainly: generation, distribution, marketing and consumption—in an alternative way. Among these new realities of the system, one in particular is particularly relevant: energy communities.

The El Cable project was born with the main purpose of turning energy communities into community and solidarity mechanisms to reduce energy vulnerability, as well as spaces for energy empowerment of people who find themselves in this vulnerable situation. The Cable – Solidaritat Energética wants to go beyond creating purely welfare solutions, including people in a situation of vulnerability in their own governance and decision-making processes within the community.

CITIZEN EMPOWERMENT IN THE ENERGY SECTOR