The objective of the COMPILE project's financing guide is to discuss the relationship between the two pillars of project development: financing and ownership. The report gives you an overview of models that energy communities may consider to finance their activities and projects. Energy communities come in many forms and sizes, operating in different contexts and taking on a wide set of activities. Hence, each energy community is unique and so will be their financing needs. This guide will walk you through the forms of financing available to your energy community and the impact on your project ownership. For tailored advice and financial expertise, we recommend you to get in touch with regional or national federations that represent energy communities in your country.

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What you will find in this guide

The first part of the report will discuss the criteria to consider when choosing financing tools, especially in relationship with ownership.

The second part of the report will describe two forms of financing sources:

  • Equity Financing: This chapter will focus on financing with equity capital. You’re offering ownership of your project to another party who steps into the capital. This can be useful if you have limited capital to start with and/or if you want to be sharing the risk. Keep in mind however that in this case, you will be sharing ownership.
  • Debt Financing: This chapter will focus on financing sources that are based on debt capital or loans. That means you have to reimburse the money that you will receive and that the funder will charge a fee (interest) on that. Debt financing can be considered if you need funds but do not want to share the ownership of your project. Keep in mind however that the owner will be carrying the risk.

A third part of the report will look at Grants and Prizes that you may use to kickstart and support the development of your project.

Finally, the guide finishes with discussing the spectrum of the cooperative organisations as a proxy for the debates around the implementation of energy community definitions, and what “community ownership” implies.

About COMPILE

COMPILE is a H2020 project looking to build citizen and renewable energy communities in closed or poorly connected systems. The goal of our project is to provide solutions for communities to grow and structure to transform the European energy system. COMPILE has produced this toolkit to support European citizens to create energy communities.