Energy communities in cooperative form as an ideal scenario in the fight against energy poverty

It is estimated that around 760 million people worldwide do not have access to electricity and that approximately two billion people do not have clean energy for cooking. The awareness of this reality has formally awakened the interest of the European Union, which, over the last decade, has produced a set of directives in which it establishes a set of measures and policies to be implemented by its Member States to combat and mitigate energy poverty. The primary objective of this study is to assess to what extent and in which way the cooperative energy communities can contribute to the fight against energy poverty. To achieve this goal, a case study was conducted on Coopernico Cooperative, a social economy entity, operating in the energy sector. The results show that the role of Coopernico in decreasing energy poverty is significant, through the promotion of decentralized renewable energy production, in partnership with several Private Institutions of Social Solidarity, which in most cases, have scarce financial resources. It is also noteworthy, the contribution the cooperative gives to the community by implementing and disseminating programs to support energy literacy and thus materializes its action on strategic principle in cooperatives, as education, training, and information.