Have a solar panel and participate in a CER. A choice that can certainly be convenient when the energy community is already active and you can understand exactly how it works, and therefore what the gain will be in addition obviously to the benefit of self-consumption.
Today, organizing in this sense is easier thanks to the new Renewable Energy Communities Showcase launched by the GSE, which maps over 4,800 already active configurations, including CERs and self-consumption groups. By clicking on the map, simply enter the POD of the bill and you can see the list of those in the area and request all the necessary information. A check that can also be done by those who have to decide whether or not to install the system and therefore evaluate the economic advantages in advance.
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Entry is always free and exit without restrictions
By law, joining a CER or a Group is completely free. All you have to do is sign the association’s statute, there are no entry, stay or compulsory fees or exit penalties, and you have the right to keep your supplier.
In practice, simply send the membership request by simply providing the POD code of the bill, specifying whether you are a producer and consumer (prosumer) or just a consumer (consumer). The GSE Showcase is intuitive and the search can be done in just a few steps.
Double advantage for prosumers
For plant owners, joining a local CER allows you to maximize the benefits. Those who have panels already save on their bills and already sell the excess energy produced to the GSE through Dedicated Withdrawal (RID).
By joining an Energy Community, without modifying anything in your system, and without incompatibility, you obtain a third gain: a share of the state premium on energy shared between all participants (equal to approximately €110-120/MWh), which is paid for the sole fact that the neighbors are consuming energy while the system feeds it into the grid. The mechanism, in fact, was created to reward self-consumption, not the sale of energy. For those who have a panel this is a net gain that accelerates the return on the initial investment, and is therefore a variable to take into account if you are thinking of installing them.
The neighborhood CER that makes the difference for those who don’t have panels
The situation changes for the pure consumer. To make the community earn money and hope for a small bonus (estimated on average at just 20-50 euros per year), you actually need to shift your consumption (washing machines, dishwashers) to the central hours of the day, i.e. when the other participants’ panels produce.
In this case, those who have a multi-hourly electricity tariff end up paying for daytime energy (Band F1) much more expensive than evening or night-time energy (Band F3), and therefore have no advantage, except in one specific case, that of CERs or Proximity Groups, i.e. communities with a short supply chain (the neighbourhood, the town, the artisan or commercial district). In practice, to be considered economically convenient for those who do not have panels, a local CER should maintain a rigid balance, ideally not exceeding 150-200 members for each single medium-sized system (around 100-200 kW) and guarantee that the ratio between producers and consumers is approximately one to three.
What to ask the CER before signing
The GSE Showcase allows you to make a decision knowing all the necessary variables. If there are multiple Energy Communities in your area, it is possible to compare them by consulting the information available for each of them. By clicking on the “+” symbol you can view further details and identify the solution best suited to your needs.
In particular, it is possible to request the Statute and the distribution agreements, i.e. what is the exact percentage of the GSE incentive that is passed on to the members and how much the CER retains for the platform management costs. Furthermore, it is possible to know the number of members under the same cabin, i.e. how many consumer users are already registered compared to the power of the installed panels. In practice, in just a few steps it is possible to get in touch with a company already operating in the area and learn more about opportunities and methods of joining. There is generally also an email address to which you can contact for further requests for information.
Summary table of benefits and earnings
You can find the GSE CER Showcase at this link. In this table we summarize the advantages, gains and risks depending on the profile of the individual interested in joining a CER:
|
Private Profile |
Real Earning Potential |
Risks |
Necessary information |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Who already has the panel (Prosumer) |
Maximum. It adds a third extra revenue (CER sharing premium) to that of the bill and RID. |
None, if the CER is not saturated with only producers without consumers. |
Join immediately, checking the Primary Cabin via the POD and favoring the hyper-local CER of your municipality. |
|
Who doesn’t have the panel (Consumer only) |
Minimal or none. Around 20-50 euros a year, often eliminated by the fragmentation of large CERs. |
Increase in bill (expensive daytime multi-hourly rate) and zero bonus in commercial maxi-CERs. |
Join only if you have a single rate, first requesting the Statute to verify the distribution percentages. |
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