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city : spotřeba
Community energy within reach change can be initiated by municipalities
COMMUNITY ENERGY, SMART ELECTRICITY, CARBON NEUTRALITY. TERMS THAT WE HAVE HEARD MORE AND MORE OFTEN IN RECENT YEARS FROM THE MAYORS OF LARGE CITIES AS WELL AS SMALL MUNICIPALITIES. LAST YEAR, SOME EVEN JOINED THE CLIMATE EMERGENCY DECLARATION. THERE ARE ALREADY SEVERAL SUCH SUSTAINABLY AMBITIOUS PROJECTS IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC. IN KNĚŽICE IN THE NYMBURK DISTRICT, THEY PRODUCE THEIR OWN HEAT AND GREEN ELECTRICITY.
: How to start when you want a smart city, town, or district? In Hostětín, a small village in the heart of the Carpathians, they built a passive house, an organic cider house and a root wastewater treatment plant, which provides water for the whole village. And in Židlochovice in the Brno region, they are again preparing to build a smart district with houses that will be energy-efficient in terms of electricity and water consumption.
For projects of this type to be created in larger numbers, changes in the laws are needed. According to František Vašek from Nano Energies, we can influence the speed of these changes ourselves. He sees inspiration, for example, in Bristol, England, where a cooperative energy community has been operating successfully for several years. It is a pilot project that was also sanctioned by the British regulator Ofgem when it granted an exemption for Bristol. „Bristol sends a message that says that when we join forces, we can implement similar projects in our country and test on them how to set rules for everyone else according to the experience and data gained,“ explains Vašek. At Nano Energies, where he leads the division dealing with renewables and sustainability, they already have experience with community energy. They cooperate, for example, with the thermally self-sufficient village Kněžice. Current legislation does not allow them to send the green energy they produce directly to local outlets. Nano Energies therefore buys green electricity from them and then sends it back. They also prepared a special tariff for Kněžice, which will save the locals on power electricity. So far, it is only considered in the price of the distribution, but the mayor is already thinking about the next stage and use of the local network, which will physically reach the electricity produced in the village. According to Vašek, there are several possibilities for following the Kněžice path. From the construction of its own municipal energy source, through the installation of selected buildings with photovoltaic panels, which can thus become energy self-sufficient, to the transition to a green tariff. At all points, Nano Energies offers experience and a helping hand.
