Regional Call For Proposal to support Participative and Citizen Projects for the Energy Transition

By project REC4EU

Published on 20 August 2024

France

Poitou-Charentes

About this good practice

The Nouvelle Aquitaine Region launched a call for Proposals to encourage and support participatory and citizen projects that help to achieve national, regional and local objectives for the energy and ecological transition.

It established 5 phases with different levels of support:

Phase 0 : the funding of a one stop shop to provide experts advices + financial support to coordinate participative operations (max 15k€)

Phase 1 EMERGENCE : financial support for mobilisation and consultation (70% of the cost max 20k€) + legal and economic studies (70% of the cost max 10k€)

Phase 2 DEVELOPMENT: financial support for project management (70% of the cost max 20k€) + technical feasibility studies (70% of the cost max 10k€)

Phase 3 INVESTMENT : Citizen participation bonus (the Region invests 1 € for 1 € invested by a citizen)

Phase 4 OPERATING : the call for proposal insists on the importance of reinvestment in new projects / energy efficiency / energy poverty.

The call sets specific eligibility criteria: type of governance, interest for the region and its residents, participative and citizen-based approach, local integration, partnership with local stakeholders, innovative nature.

Resources needed

The Policy tools is supported by the Region and ADEME (The French Agency for Ecological Transition)
Since 2017, 69 requests (including the studies) have been supported, with a total amount of 507k€ (72k€/year on average)
One employee of the Region is working on the follow up.

Evidence of success

Since 2017, the number of EC applying for regional support is increasing (from 2 in 2017 to 10 in 2023).
The installed power from Citizen projects is increasing. (217kW in 2017 and 530kW in 2022)
During the territorial analysis phase, local stakeholders confirm that in the early phase, new Energy Communities need financial support for the technical legal and economic studies.

Potential for learning or transfer

The Call for proposal was designed with local stakeholders with a bottom-up approach.

To check feasibility and economic balance, some studies are needed (structural, feasibility, grid connection studies). They have a significant cost and support is often needed.

EMERGENCE PHASE : the group needs support to mobilise people and to define legal and financial package.

DEVELOPMENT PHASE : Technical and financial studies are expensive, and the project is not completely secured at this stage. Supporting them creates a favourable environment for EC projects.

INVESTMENT PHASE : as including citizen is not always the easiest, the citizen participation bonus allows to nudge the initiatives that take the risk.

The policy tool defines clearly the eligibility criteria, insisting on the local, citizen participation and energy saving approaches.

Dedicating 1 employee to the management and follow up of the projects allows the Region to know the territorial context and to personalise the support.