Energy communities: joining, creating, running

An energy community brings citizens, businesses or local authorities together to produce, share and consume their own energy. It is a legal entity, usually a non-profit (ASBL) or a cooperative, which members join freely. The sharing is administrative, not physical: the distribution system operator (DSO) allocates each member a share of local production, quarter-hour by quarter-hour, according to an allocation key. This is called collective self-consumption. You keep your supplier, which bills the part of your consumption that sharing does not cover.

The legal framework stems from two European directives. The renewable energy community (CER) covers renewable energy only, heat included, and imposes a proximity requirement; the citizen energy community (CEC) accepts any source but is limited to electricity, with no geographic constraint. In both cases effective control rests with the members, and profit is not the primary purpose. In Belgium, each region sets its own rules, and the local energy community (CEL) is specific to Brussels. The three statuses are compared in “Energy communities in Belgium: CER, CEC, CEL”. In Wallonia, there are two ways in:

• You want to join a community. There is no need to install panels: the only equipment required is a smart meter and, in a CER, your delivery point must lie within the perimeter. OptimCE’s public registry of sharing operations, the SPW Energy Community facilitator and Énergie commune help you find an open operation. Before signing, read the sharing agreement: internal price, allocation key, exit terms. The guide “Join an energy community in Wallonia” details these checks.
• You are leading a project (municipality, school, co-ownership, citizen cooperative). You need to choose between CER and CEC, set up the legal entity, appoint a single representative, notify the CWaPE, then organise the sharing with the DSO. The CWaPE does not approve a community: it acknowledges receipt of the notification, and sharing cannot start before that acknowledgement. The steps are set out in “Create an energy community in Wallonia”.

Once the community is up and running, effective control by the members remains a continuing requirement. It is sustained by informing members regularly and consulting them before deciding, particularly on the allocation key, which affects every bill: that is the subject of “Engaging energy community members”.

On the administrative side, the CWaPE receives the notification, its modifications and the annual report; the DSO receives everything concerning the sharing. Two deadlines are often misread: an incomplete notification dossier lapses if it is not completed within six months of the first acknowledgement, and the annual report is due every year by 1 September, whatever the notification date. The details are in “Energy community: CWaPE documents and deadlines”.

The guides below follow these three stages: the framework, creating or joining, then the life of the community.