Community power: Spain's solar co-ops cutting down energy poverty

Mirna Hernandez has lived in Spain for over 15 years. 

She's originally from Honduras but despite spending more than a decade caring for families and the elderly in Spanish homes, she's struggling.

"I have five children," she says, "and my salary just isn't enough to make ends meet." 

Using the photos on the wall of her small apartment in the town of Tona in the Barcelona province, shows us her three children in Honduras, and her two youngest girls in school in Spain.

Hernandez is one of over a billion people worldwide suffering from energy or fuel poverty, according to recent studies by the International Energy Agency and the United Nations Development Programme. Many often face a choice between heating or eating through winter.

But an emerging local movement is helping ease the financial strain for people like Hernandez.

Josep Maria, of the La Tonenca Community Energy cooperative, takes CGTN to the Tona community center, which plays host to all kinds of activities – like the local dance troupe that performs traditional dances during the fiestas.  

Roof for rent

It's on the roof, however, where you'll find a community revolution in action.

"We have 45 solar panels here on this building, providing energy for 10 households, seven of them in vulnerable situations," Maria says.

How it works is that the co-op rents the roof from the local church that owns the building, paying them in energy – usually around 15 percent of the power generated.

The initial cost of installing the solar panels came from a community competition started by a local engineering firm aiming to fund the best social program proposal.

La Tonenca won and now members pay a fee to join the cooperative, the solar power generated on this and other roofs enters the local grid, a proportion of which powers their homes, the energy companies discounting the energy created from their monthly bill.

For people like Hernandez it's a lifeline.

"I'm just really happy to be part of the co-op because my energy bill is now much lower and that helps me make it to pay day," she says.

From an initial group of 10 people, the co-op now has 122 members. They pay around $100 to join, but vulnerable members of the society can join for much less, sometimes around $25. 

The local town hall social services office assesses which members of the community qualify for vulnerable status.

"It's been a very positive experience," says Josep Maria. "We meet about once a week to approve budgets, it's a rewarding job making sure everyone is getting the energy that they signed up for. We all have our own jobs and our own lives but we always make time for the community."

CGTN visits the local food bank – which is also powered by community volunteers and solar energy.

Carmen shows us the freezer, where the meat, pasta and frozen vegetables and so on are stored. It's the food bank's most energy-hungry part – and it's being powered by the sun.

Rooftop revolution – the solar communities spreading across Spain 

In the nearby town of Taradell, CGTN meets with Eugeni Vila Rovira, president of the Taradell Sustainable Cooperative.

"Our cooperative began as a citizens' movement in 2021, a group of people restless for environmental change but also concerned about social change," says Vila Rovira. 

They wanted to start an 'Ecosocial Transition' and began petitioning the local government for funding for projects like allotments to grow their own food, but what's sprouted from their efforts is something much bigger.

Inspired by the pioneering New Energy Osona project in a town 15 minutes away, where four pioneers lit the fuse on this success story, Taradell, like Tona, is now covering public and private buildings with solar panels and selling the energy produced at a lower price than the market to its members.

Vila Rovira shows CGTN a local upcycling, art and cultural center in Taradell which is also a power plant – 280 solar panels generating electricity on the roof. They also pay a roof rent in energy to the owner of the private building of 15 percent of the power generated.

It's one of over half a dozen installations in Taradell where around 150 co-op members receive electricity through the grid from five solar installations on private and local government buildings, which is then reflected in the savings on their bills.

Again, the $100 membership fee to join the co-op is reduced to around $25 – or sometimes even zero through a membership swap system – if a household is designated at risk of poverty by local authorities.

In Spain, 65 percent of the population lives in apartment blocks rather than individual houses, meaning that most people don't own a roof to put up their own solar panels. Many don't have the necessary $7,000 or so handy in spare cash either.

So this localized approach makes a lot of sense financially – and technically, it could also make events like Spain's April 28 blackout last year less likely.

"Generating energy close to where you use it is technically more efficient," continues Vila Rovira, "but not only that, with solar panels on the roof we also save something of great value to the Spanish people – the beauty of our natural countryside."

The idea has spread across northern Spain from coast to coast, stretching from Catalonia to Galicia, where Atlantic islands like the Islas Cíes – where you'll find a marine protected area and one of the most beautiful beaches in the world – are ditching the diesel generators for solar powered community installations, an idea generating European-wide interest.