Before the end of July, around 300 families will receive a very different electricity bill. The kilowatt cost will be zero since it comes from its own solar panels. The difference compared to the 200,500 Spanish households that already enjoy energy self-consumption in Spain is that the solar panels of these families are not on the roofs of their homes, not even on nearby shared roofs. They are, in some cases, hundreds of kilometers from the place where they consume energy.
They are the first clients of a curious company, Comunidad Solar, which was born a couple of years ago promoted, among others, by the entrepreneur Eugenio García Calderón or the experts in the sector Antonio Carrión and Eduardo Soria, currently also directors of the renewable energy Circle Energy. “We think that technology allows you to be the owner of your own energy and stop depending so much on big companies even if you don’t have a single-family home, if you are the owner of a small business in the center of the city and, even, if you you live for rent”, explains Eugenio García Calderón.
It is about the incipient concept of remote consumption. The model proposed by Comunidad Solar is to offer customers throughout the Spanish territory the 30-year right to part of the energy production of three solar parks and a hydraulic power station located in Murcia and Rio Pisuerga (Palencia) respectively.
Aware of the reluctance that the model can generate, to start up the first parks and the small hydraulic power station were acquired and financed by the company itself. The idea is that in the future the community members themselves (as they call the clients) are the promoters of the energy park in which they will later participate. Something similar to housing in cooperatives.
The savings are not like the one provided by a solar panel on your own roof, since here, although the cost of energy is zero euros, you have to pay tolls, taxes, etc. to transport the energy. “We function as intermediaries for the management of the production and consumption of clients; our technology allows hourly monitoring and both the surpluses in the hours of greatest production and the light consumed when the panels do not generate are paid to the market hour by hour”, explains the founder of Comunidad Solar. He assures that this can be contracted by a tenant and if he moves home, he can take the contract with him to his new address.
The decision to join this system must be meditated and the calculations well done, because in case of regret, the company does not repurchase the plates or shares acquired. Of course, it allows them to be sold to other interested parties.
The initial investment is moderate, they say from Comunidad Solar. “An average family in Spain that needs to hire 4 energy mixes to reach consumption in their home, must make an investment of 4,796 euros (4 x 1,199 euros each mix), in cash or with financing.
Taking as a reference the average price of energy in 2023 (0.17 euros per kWh) and a monthly consumption of 380 kWh, the electricity bill without self-consumption would be 95 euros (65 euros for energy 30 euros in concept of fees and tolls). With Comunidad Solar’s remote self-consumption service, there would be a saving of 65 euros (energy at 0 price) and the investment (4,796 euros) would be amortized in around 6 years. In other words, 70% of the electricity bill would be saved month after month.
