The Efficient Energy Cluster of Catalonia held a day last May 11 at the World Trade Center in Barcelona to publicize the current state of the energy communities in Spain as part of the Solar+ Storage Fair. With the presence of half a hundred attendees, the day served to provide a global view of the situation of the energy communities in the State, pending the approval of the Royal Decree Project on LEC (Local Energy Communities) by the Spanish government that plans to transpose two European directives to advance its regulation.

The day began with the institutional welcome by the president of the CEEC, Joaquim Daura, who highlighted the role of the energy communities in facing the challenge of climate change and the decarbonization of the energy sector. "Energy communities democratize energy and promote digitization, therefore, they must be our priority", expressed Daura.

Then, the day continued with the first block on the general context surrounding LECs with the presence of experts in different fields of action. First of all, has intervened Josep Maria Salas, councilor of the CNMC, who has provided the point of view of the regulatory body. For Salas, what the energy communities need is "a very clear regulatory framework, which we still don't have, not only because of the lack of transpositions but because of the lack of access to data", a fact that he called "inadmissible ". In this regard, Salas has spoken of the "unnecessary interference" of the political sphere in the progress of regulation and has asked all actors to "make procedural matters easier".

Then it was the turn of Jorge Andrey, partner of Dauss Abogados, who from the legal field referred to the Royal Decree project on energy communities, which he believes "lacks ambition". Later, Andrey also wanted to highlight the role of LECs to "democratize the electricity sector" and contribute to "energetic assets being in the hands of citizens".

The last presentation of the first block was led by the CEO of KM0 Energy, Santi Martínez, who spoke about his company's experience in the operational management of energy communities. During his speech, the head of KM0 Energy emphasized the role of LECs as a "social movement that empowers people". "Energy communities are more about social transition than energy, they represent a small part of what a state has to do to decarbonize, but we must not underestimate the importance of the social transition they involve", he commented.

After this presentation, the day took a break before resuming the second block dedicated to the presentation of key tools for the establishment of energy communities.

Xavi Bou, Director of Innovation at Elecsum, has been in charge of resuming the round of presentations planned to talk about the functionalities that the digital management platforms of these communities must have, using as an example the experience of 'Electsum. Bou spoke about the types of existing communities, the different phases that characterize their digitization process, and ended by presenting some R&D projects in energy communities, such as Flexenergy II, which has the participation of Electra Caldense and the coordination of the CEEC.

He then followed Franc Comino, CEO of Sonnen Spain, with a presentation about storage and how battery systems act in energy communities. From his company's experience, Comino has explained how shared self-consumption works with distributed storage systems and has referred to some of its advantages, such as the reduction of cabling, or its better ability to manage the demand and excess generation in peak hours.

The last of the speakers was Mattia Barbero, product manager and co-founder of Bamboo Energy, who presented a start-up platform based on AI for the management of flexibility in energy communities.

The day was closed by the CEEC cluster manager, Francesc Ribera, who at the end wanted to take advantage of his intervention to thank the work of the cluster's Photovoltaic Working Group, also as the main promoters of this day Following this thread, Ribera also wanted to claim the role of the cluster "as a speaker and promoter of projects" in the different strategic areas of the sector.