Plan the energy transition in French regions
The project
The objective of Centrales Villageoises is to provide citizens with a framework that allows them to undertake actions in favor of the energy transition in their local region by investing in a local cooperative company, creating citizen-owned energy communities. Citizens thus become shareholders in their local company, enabling them to finance photovoltaic operations on private or public clusters of roofs. However, their action doesn’t stop at investing, as each energy community is directly steered by the citizens who, pragmatically, are then in charge of the implementation of projects, whether in the field of energy production or energy efficiency.
The Centrales Villageoises association provides comprehensive technical support to guide and train these cooperatives in the operational implementation of renewable energy or energy efficiency projects while coordinating the network of local companies (via patronage actions or by capitalizing on feedback). This way of operating not only allows citizens to adopt a hands-on approach to energy issues and their region’s development, it also enables numerous tools to be pooled and shared between the various communities.
Since 2014, this model developed from 8 pilot sites has spread to a number of French regions while always conveying the same values: direct citizen participation in project governance, close ties with local authorities and communities, taking into account of regions’ intersecting issues, sharing of the wealth created, local economic development, quality approach. The association has thus put in place the first national network of local energy cooperatives. The Akuo Foundation supported the Centrales Villageoises association regarding several objectives: the massification of the network of communities (opening of new cooperatives), the diversification of their projects (opening of new streams) and strengthened support (creation of pooled jobs between cooperatives).
37
areas concerned
370
volunteers directly supported by the association
20
planning departments
30
installers
3000
shareholders in the local companies