El Salvador Energy Community, Medellín, Colombia
Transactive Energy Colombia Initiative is an industry-academia partnership funded in part by the UK’s Royal Academy of Engineering and led by EIA University and University College London. Industry partners include EPM, the local utility in Medellín and one of the largest in Latin America, ERCO, a DER company, and NEU, a digital energy retailer with the potential to become an aggregator. The initiative aims to build an evidence base for the user-centred application of energy systems in the Colombian context and to find the best way to promote and ensure the sustainability of community solar projects in Colombia in a way that benefits both users and the utility, taking into account cultural and country specificities.
El Salvador Energy Community is the second project of the initiative and is located in a residential neighbourhood in Colombia’s second-largest city, Medellín. This project aims to initiate social and environmental change through the development of energy communities in Colombia. There are 24 households participating in the energy community. The participants’ houses are located in stratum 3 (the Colombian classification of socio-economic strata goes from 1 to 6, stratum 3 stands for a low- to middle-income neighbourhood).
Timeline:
- 2022 March – April | Individual interviews with different stakeholders, including the Ministry of Energy of Colombia, Municipality of Medellín, EPM and CREG (Energy and Gas Regulatory Commission)
- 2022, 31st of March | Webinar ‘The future of energy communities in Colombia’ – RENAISSANCE participated in sharing experiences and vision of the EC from the European context.
- 2022 April – May | Data gathering process and analysis
- 2022 July | Final workshop with the community
