Pricing and invoicing in an energy community

The allocation key decides how many kWh each member receives; what remains is to set what they are worth in euros, then to turn those volumes into invoices. In Wallonia and Brussels, the price is freely determined between the participants, in the sharing agreement, and no Belgian regulator publishes a cap or a calculation method. In Flanders, sharing within an energy community must be free of charge: a project that wants to pay its producers has to choose a different legal structure.

Our guide to the internal transfer price reasons in terms of a range. The floor is the injection tariff the producer would get without the community; the ceiling, the energy component the consumer already pays their supplier. Any price between the two creates value; to split that surplus, the guide compares five methods: a fixed price voted at the general meeting, splitting the difference, the cost price of the installation, a percentage discount on the energy component, and indexation on a market index. Two precautions head off many misunderstandings: present the saving only on the energy component, since network fees, taxes and VAT remain due on the shared kWh, and review the price at least once a year at the general meeting.

Then comes the invoice, or rather the two invoices detailed in our guide “Invoicing shared electricity in Belgium”. Each member’s supplier keeps billing the residual energy, along with the network fees on the entire volume of kWh drawn. The sharing representative, designated in the agreement, invoices the shared energy at the internal price; the grid operator computes and forwards the volumes, but does not invoice. According to CWaPE, the representative’s invoice adds to the price VAT, excise duties and the public-service obligation to surrender green-certificate quotas.

It is therefore the representative who carries the obligations. VAT is 6% for a residential member and 21% for a professional member, so a community with mixed membership invoices at two rates; below €25 000 of annual turnover excluding VAT, the small-business exemption scheme may apply. No circular deals specifically with energy sharing: have your regime validated by an accountant before the first invoice. Every invoice carries a number in a continuous, gapless series, the shared kWh per EAN with their unit price, a structured payment reference and the community’s IBAN; an issued invoice can only be corrected with a credit note, followed by a new invoice.

To go from the voted price to the documents, OptimCE’s billing module generates invoices, credit notes and remuneration statements from the official settlement data; this first version is designed for the Walloon framework. The guides below follow the same thread: set the price, then invoice it.