The first renewable energy community in Portugal was inaugurated in August 2021 in Miranda do Douro, a rural village in the north. One year on, pv magazine spoke with the company behind the project to assess its status. With a production capacity of 73.3 kWp, solar has saved the community €31,500 ($30,850) on electricity bills.
October 7, 2022
Portugal’s first renewable energy community (REC) was inaugurated in August 2021 in Miranda do Douro, a northern small rural village close to the border with Spain. The project was implemented by Cleanwatts, a climate tech company offering clean energy services based in Coimbra, Portugal. The REC is part of Cleanwatt’s “100 Aldeias” project, which aims to fight energy poverty in the sparsely populated interior of Portugal.
At present, the consumers of the REC are buildings of Santa Casa da Misericórdia, a well-known charitable institution in Portugal, housing nursing homes, and a kindergarten, with more than 100 members in total. After the community’s one year anniversary, Cleanwatts is “now entering in the phase of attracting new members,” Michael Pinto, the company’s CEO, told pv magazine. “Our goal is to expand the work done with the anchor client to as many people in the community as possible.”
The PV panels installed in the community have a production capacity of 73.3 kW and provide electricity for air conditioning, computers, and other energy needs of the institution.
“The benefits in the first year of operation (August 2021 to August 2022) were undeniable,” Pinto said. “Based on the indexed electricity tariff for 2022, which is estimated at €0.35/kWh, Santa Casa da Misericórdia Miranda do Douro would have spent an additional €31,500 on grid electricity,” he added. The REC had an energy autonomy of 33% (90 MWh/year) and saved 19 tons of carbon dioxide emissions.
Analyzing production, consumption
Portugal’s first REC uses eRedes, the distributor unit of national utility EDP, to analyze the production and consumption profiles of the community members, so it can distribute the energy produced accordingly. It also uses Cleanwatt’s energy markets platform Kiplo to aggregate small and medium energy loads, “including batteries, EV chargers, heaters, boilers, chillers and distributed generation systems,” according to the company. The platform works through the company’s virtual power plant, to support community managers and energy market operators.
As for data protection, Cleanwatts separates personal and consumption data and stores them in difference places. That way, “we can work the consumption data, statistically and analytically, safeguarding the personal data of each member,” said Pinto. “Data are stored in a database where each member has their repository properly coded to ensure data protection and privacy.”
The community does not currently use blockchain technology, but Cleanwatts said it has tested the technology in several of its …….
Source: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2022/10/07/portugals-first-solar-energy-community-yields-results/