Digitalising communities to gain efficiency and transparency 

The energy transition is not only about installing solar panels — it is also about improving energy management.

For an energy community to be truly efficient and transparent, it needs a solid technological foundation. OECOOP’s commitment to digitalisation ensures that collective self-consumption is simple for people, transparent in its accounts, and flawless in its technical execution.

Indeed, digital technology makes the difference between a static project and a dynamic community. Let us look at this in two phases:

From Project to Reality: The Recruitment and Launch Phase

This first phase is critical because it allows us to lay the foundations of a community. A digital tool can transform what might otherwise be a slow and opaque process into a smoother experience based on certainty.

Benefits of Digital Management in This Phase:

• Member recruitment based on real data: The tool facilitates personalised feasibility studies based on actual consumption profiles for members, building confidence in their move towards self-consumption.

• Streamlined administrative processes: Launching an installation involves managing a large number of contracts and permits. Digitalising this part allows documentation to be centralised and remote signing to be used, speeding up communication with distributors and avoiding manual errors in distribution agreements.

• Design of distribution coefficients: Using algorithms, the tool calculates the ideal combination of members and their distribution coefficients. This ensures that the installation is sized and configured to maximise collective savings from the very first minute.

Life and Performance: The Operation and Maintenance Phase

Once the installation is up and running, the goal is to keep it profitable. Digital operation allows the community to be managed in an automated way, ensuring that the financial benefit is maintained throughout the entire useful life of the plant.

Benefits of Digital Management in Day-to-Day Operations:

• Predictive maintenance: Instead of sporadic manual inspections, the tool monitors production 24/7. If an anomaly or drop in performance is detected, the system sends an immediate alert so action can be taken before the community’s savings are affected.

• User empowerment: Via an app, each participant can visualise their consumption and their share of production in real time. This digital data is the best educational tool for adapting consumption to peak sunlight hours.

• Member fee billing management: The digital tool handles the automation and centralisation of billing for consumer member fees. This ensures a clear, regular, and error-free collection process, supporting the cooperative’s financial sustainability without adding manual burdens for managers.

• Financial monitoring of the community: The tool provides very useful reports for analysing potential changes in consumer user profiles and for making decisions about their participation in self-consumption.

For more information about the digitalisation service offered at OECOOP, please do not hesitate to contact Quim Puigdesens: qpuigdesens@oecoop.coop.