Green light from the EU for the Italian Cer (Renewable Energy Communities) Decree

22 November 2023: the Italian decree promoting the self-consumption of renewable energy (Cer Decree) gets the approval of the European Commission. After several months, the process started last February by the Italian Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security with the European Union on the proposed decree has been successfully concluded.

The Cer Decree aims to provide concrete support for the creation of new renewable energy communities.

But what “energy communities” are? They are groups of subjects (which can be citizens, local authorities, associations, condominiums, third sector, cooperatives, religious institutions and/or small and medium-sized enterprises) that join together to self-produce energy from renewable sources. Thanks to Energy communities, in fact, each of these actors will be able to contribute to the production of renewable energy, and have the economic benefits of self-consumption.

The Cer Decree sets out two measures for this purpose: (i) an incentive tariff on the produced and shared renewable energy and (ii) a non-repayable contribution. The benefits involve all renewable technologies, such as photovoltaics, eolic, hydroelectric and biomass.

As to the first measure, it is an incentive tariff on the quota of energy shared by renewable energy plants, it is applicable to the entire Italian territory, from the small municipality to the metropolitan city, and results in energy cost savings for those who form an Energy community. The maximum power eligible for the incentive measure is 5 GW by 31 December 2027.

As to the second measure (non-repayable contribution), it is applicable to the territories of municipalities with less than 5,000 inhabitants and provides non-repayable contributions up to 40 per cent of the investment for the subjects establishing an Energy community. The measure applies both to the construction of new plants and the upgrading of existing plants. In this case, the measure is financed with Euro 2.2 billion from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan and aims to achieve a total power of at least 2 giga watts. The non-repayable contribution can be cumulated with the incentive tariff.

In order to obtain the benefits provided by the Cer Decree, it will be necessary to identify the area where the plant is to be built and the other users connected to the same primary substation, who associate with, to establish the Energy community with an Articles of Association or deed of incorporation, which has as its prevailing corporate purpose the environmental, economic and social benefit, to obtain the authorisation to install and connect the plant to the grid to make it operating, and finally request the incentive measure/s to the GSE, which can also be approached in advance to verify the eligibility of the project in order to ensure the concrete possibility of obtaining the incentive measures.

After the green light from Bruxelles, there is now nothing left but the publication of the decree in the Italian Official Gazzette for the same to finally enter into force.