On 23 July 2024, Sofia Energy Agency – SOFENA officially became an associated member of the Climate Alliance.

“We are pleased to be a member of Climate Alliance and will do our best to work on, promote, support and develop the climate initiatives of the organization” – said Mr Z. Georgiev, the executive director of SOFENA.

Climate Alliance membership stands as an expression of climate commitment.

True to the Climate Alliance slogan, “taking local action on the global climate crisis,” SOFENA now stands with almost 2,000 members from more than 25 European countries for comprehensive climate action. Climate Alliance members promote a fair, nature-based, local, resource-saving and diverse approach to climate action. They promote climate justice in partnership with indigenous rainforest peoples and commit to continuously cut their greenhouse gas emissions, aiming for a reduction of at least 95 % by 2050 in line with Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recommendations.

Climate Alliance members receive support on the implementation of their climate action measures and benefit from the network’s vast experience. Climate Alliance provides tools for CO2 monitoring as well as campaigns on topics such as mobility, building renovation, climate justice and education. The network also promotes the interests of its member municipalities at national and European levels.

Read more at www.climatealliance.org

A LIFE-BECKON project meeting was held in the city of Ávila, Spain, on May 30 and 31, 2024, where were presented the ready tools for promoting the establishment of energy communities in the three pilot countries – Spain, Bulgaria and Denmark.
In addition to the Handbook of good practices in the field of energy communities, training materials are also ready in the form of videos intended for municipal employees, citizens and local businesses.
All is uploaded to an online platform called “One-stop-shop”, which is accessible at: https://app.community.nectios.com/life-beckon , but after pre-registration and setting up of an account.
In the meeting a representative of CINEA who is responsible for the project also took part. He presented new funding opportunities under the LIFE program. There is currently an open call for project proposals in 6 directions, which is valid until 19/09/2024. For more information: https://cinea.ec.europa.eu/programmes/life/life-calls-proposals-2024_en
Several trainings are coming up in the partner countries of the project, and for Bulgaria a training is planned for 07/04/2024 in the town of Gabrovo.
Among the Bulgarian municipalities – replicators under the LIFE-BECKON project are Kotel, Sapareva Banya, Ruse and Sofia. They participated actively in the first online training organized on 27.05.2024.
The recruitment phase for municipalities willing to join continues!
You can write to us at: taobeckon@sofena.com

The third international meeting of De-Risk project took place
on 18 and 19 April 2024, in the city of Murcia, Spain,

Within the framework of the project, 4 pilots will be implemented, one in Turkey and one in Ireland, and two in Spain, including the cities of Murcia and Barcelona.

The installation of smart devices for measuring energy consumption, as well as the inclusion of renewable energy sources in the Spanish pilots ends and begins the actual phase of implementation of the activities set out in the project.

Analyzes regarding legislation, measures and opportunities for the development of flexibility market services in the partner countries are also in their final phase.

The development of working business models for similar services, monitoring of the pilots, and analysis of the obtained results is coming in the next months.

Roadmaps for the development of flexibility market services in 10 European countries will also be developed, covering also the EU policies in this direction.

LIFE-BECKON Lunch webinar , 13 February 2024, 14:00-15:00 CET

Energy communities are community-driven energy initiatives that contribute to a decentralised, flexible and sustainable energy system. Many energy agencies and public authorities aim to assist the citizen-led energy projects in development and operation, but struggle to provide structured and accessible support mechanisms. So-called ‘Technical Assistance Offices’ (TAO) are instruments that are popping up in several European cities, regions and energy agencies with this specific objective. Here, energy communities in all phases of development can receive professional support and access to a like-minded community. The LIFE-BECKON project focuses on the set-up of TAOs and experiments with different set-ups in its three pilot sites in Bulgaria, Denmark and Spain.

This lunchtime webinar will demonstrate how the LIFE-BECKON project contributes to empowering local and regional authorities and energy agencies in supporting local energy initiatives and communities. It displays how the concept of a TAO comes to life in Sofia’s Energy Agency and what the project-own Cookbook offers to public authorities willing to boost energy communities.

Agenda

14:00 Welcome Andrea Carosi, Climate Alliance

14:05 What is to gain from participating in the call for replication? Andrea Carosi, Climate Alliance, Q&A

14:20 LIFE-BECKON’s Cookbook for Energy Communities – Offers and how it will support energy agencies and public authorities Asier Larretxea, WeGlobal, Q&A

14:40 The TAO for energy communities in Sofia – An example of how an energy agency empowers public authorities and energy communities Nadya Nikolova, Sofia Energy Agency, Q&A

14:55 Closing Andrea Carosi, Climate Alliance

Registration is open.

International conference, 01.02.2024 | Online,  13:00 – 14:00 CET

Energy communities are community-driven energy initiatives that contribute to a decentralised, flexible and sustainable energy system. Many local authorities aim to assist the citizen-led energy projects in development and operation, but struggle to provide structured and accessible support mechanisms. So-called ‘Technical Assistance Offices’ (TAO) are instruments that are popping up in several European towns and cities with this specific objective. Here, energy communities in all phases of development can receive professional support and access to a like-minded community. The LIFE-BECKON project focuses on the set-up of TAOs and experiments with different set-ups in its three pilot sites in Bulgaria, Denmark and Spain.

This lunchtime event will demonstrate how the LIFE-BECKON project contributes to empowering local authorities in supporting local energy initiatives and communities. It displays how the concept of a TAO comes to life in Copenhagen and what the project-own One-Stop-Shop (OSS) offers to municipalities willing to boost energy communities.

Register now!

LIFE-BECKON is currently running an open call to promote energy communities. The goal is to enable local authorities to set up TAOs and to familiarise them with the concept of energy communities, empower them to create spaces for such citizen-centred energy projects and support them.

Learn more

• Event agenda
• LIFE-BECKON call

During the ABEA Annual Conference, which took place on November 28, 2023 at the Hemus Hotel in Sofia, SOFENA organized an event to open a technical office and to present the upcoming activities under the LIFE-BECKON project to promote energy communities in Bulgaria. The event was attended by representatives of state and municipal authorities, non-governmental organizations and enterprises, energy experts and citizens.

The Еxecutive director of SEA SOFENA, Dr. Zdravko Georgiev, informed the participants that the purpose of the technical office is to consult all interested parties – local authorities, enterprises and citizens on how to create and operate an energy community. Information, training and consultation on technical, financial, management, regulatory and administrative issues will be made available to interested organizations and citizens through an online One Stop Shop platform.

The SOFENA Technical Assistance Office is the place where interested parties, citizens, organizations and businesses will get advice and find all the information and services they need to create and manage an energy community project.

For advice and more info:

• Technical Assistance Office
• Еmail: taobeckon@sofena.com
• Phone.: +359 2 943 44 01
• Web: www.sofena.com
• Address: 65 Tsar Ivan Asen II St., Sofia-1124, Bulgaria

On November 28, 2023, during the second day of the ABEA Annual Conference, a seminar on the legal issues of energy communities in the countries of the European Community under the Lightness project was held at the Hemus Hotel in Sofia. The event was attended by over 70 participants – representatives of state and municipal authorities, energy experts, citizens and representatives of the non-governmental sector.

The seminar was opened by Eng. Ivaylo Alexiev, executive director of SEDA, who emphasized the recent changes in Bulgarian legislation regarding renewable energy sources and the prospects for the development of energy communities in the country based on established models in Europe.

Dr. Zdravko Georgiev from SEA SOFENA introduced the existing good practices and the results of the pilot initiatives under the Lightness project, presenting the first steps for the formation of energy communities for renewable energy in our country.

Dr. Nadia Nikolova-Deme from SEA SOFENA made a comparative analysis of the definitions of civil energy communities and renewable energy communities in the light of the changes in the Bulgarian legislation.

Good examples of tools to help citizens to create energy communities and collective models were presented by Dr. Maria Trifonova – coordinator of the Shares project, CHIEC, and Eng. Stanislav Andreev from EnEffect acquainted the participants with the launch of the activities for setting up an energy cooperative in the municipality of Gabrovo in the form of a public-private partnership.

The seminar ended with a fruitful discussion on the possibilities that the creation of energy communities opens up to support energy poor households and to provide their members with  own energy at low prices.