SCORE - Supporting Consumer Ownership in Renewable Energies

The project aims at engaging private consumers and households in co-financing schemes for RE installations, with a focus on vulnerable groups like low-income HH, unemployment and women.

With a budget of over 1 million€, pilots are supported in setting up an inclusive financing model for renewable energy installations, the Consumer Stock Ownership Plan (CSOP). The CSOP foresees the financial participation of private households in jointly owned RE plants, e.g. rooftop PV. Ideally, the households consume the electricity produced and reach ownership of the installations, thus reducing their energy bills and becoming active partners in the local energy transition. Other co-investors such as municipalities and private actors are also co-investors to make the investment feasible. To reach this goal, the projects supports the pilots in technical aspects, EE measures and in involving vulnerable consumers via trusted local intermediaries. Beyond the pilots, Follower Cities are invited to replicate the financing model. Currently, several projects take the form of energy communities.

The project is a scalable financial model for RE projects including vulnerable consumers. A lesson learnt is that the European-wide approach is a barrier to participation of low-income households in RE projects (=dilemma that persons receiving social welfare are not able to form assets under this welfare structure, thus impeding them to become prosumers and actively involved in acquiring ownership stake in RE projects).

The project started in 2018 and was completed in 2021. It benefited the low income and national/local authorities and was gender-oriented. It addressed the topics of law and legislation, energy access and consumption, energy efficiency, financing schemes, gender.

Some concrete key performance indicators (KPIs) of the project include:

• Enabling policy: 15 Number of citations/statements from governance bodies.
• Investment in sustainable Energy: 9 Million € investments made by the European consumers.
• Energy savings: 29.86 GWh/Year.
• Renewable Energy production : 10.97 GWh/year.