In San Giovanni a Teduccio, a suburb of Naples, the first solidarity-based Renewable Energy Community (CER) in Southern Italy was born. The project, financed through a call for tenders by Fondazione con il Sud, has seen the birth of an energy community, in the form of a non-profit organisation, made up of the Fondazione Famiglia di Maria, which runs a socio-educational centre in the neighbourhood, and of families in distressed conditions, residing in flats adjacent to the foundation and connected to the same electricity box. In December 2021, 166 solar panels mounted on the community’s former orphanage, now home to the Famiglia di Maria Foundation’s activities, were put into operation, producing 53 kW for the first twenty families in the neighbourhood, which has now grown to 40.
The electricity produced in the ‘Energy and Solidarity Community of East Naples’ for the next twenty-five years will be sold to the national grid and will consequently lead to an income of 200 euros per year per family, i.e. the saving of two bills, in addition to the 20 per cent discount already applied on the utilities of those who have joined the energy community. All this brings not only an extraordinary economic benefit to the families in the neighbourhood who live in absolute or near-absolute poverty, but also a real energy and social revolution, as citizens have become the protagonists of the energy transition and proponents of energy production models alternative to those linked to fossil fuels.
Supporting the project is also Legambiente Campania, which, together with the Fondazione Famiglia di Maria, promotes environmental education and active citizenship actions by monitoring their consumption and electricity and heat dispersion in their homes, and information days for high schools on employment opportunities linked to green jobs and for neighbourhood associations and citizens on bonuses and opportunities to improve the quality of living and lower costs and consumption.
The initiative is a great example of cultural change in a neighbourhood of lawlessness, cultural, social and economic poverty. Moreover, in this historical phase in which the Russian war in Ukraine has led to a sharp rise in energy bills and an exponential increase in energy costs, but there is still difficulty in abandoning traditional energy sources and the ecological transition seems far from complete, the CER in San Giovanni aTeduccio becomes a model to be replicated that demonstrates how bottom-up paths work, where mothers and children have played an important role in disseminating and informing about solar energy by convincing their families to accept the project.
