Le Vele, a solidarity project that empowers disadvantaged schools and families

If someone had written a manual with everything that needs to be in a solidarity-based Cer (Renewable Energy Community), he would have made a sketch of Le Vele, the first Cer in Rome, born two years ago and already operational. There is the Leonarda Vaccari Institute, an institution that has been awarded four times with gold medals for public administration (in 2007, the last one was for public health). An Italian monument to care. Active since 1936, the Leonarda Vaccari is a non-profit organisation that provides psycho-physical rehabilitation and educational and social integration of differently abled individuals, through clinical care and therapy, education up to and including compulsory schooling, and vocational training.

There is a headmistress, Saveria Dandini, granddaughter of the founder Leonarda Vaccari, who on all occasions when called upon to talk about the Vele, explains very simply that one day, reading the electricity bill, she realised she was paying an exorbitant amount of money and saw the possibility of improving the conditions of her institute and those assisted by setting up a solidarity-based Renewable Energy Community. Then there is tenacity, the will to overcome bureaucratic problems. There is the intervention of the municipality, the Municipality I, and the bottom-up intervention, with word of mouth that starts when Cer is founded. There are the potential partners, private individuals and other institutions, who arrive without clamour but with a great desire to do. Then there are the companies that move in to lend a hand. There is the demonstration that even in the heart of Rome, amidst archaeological and environmental constraints, permits can be quickly obtained to install photovoltaic panels on roofs and distribute energy and benefits to those in need. There is proof that Cer can work.

Twenty thousand euros a month was the bill for the Leonarda Vaccari. A huge sum that was taking resources away from patient care. It was the spring that triggered the establishment of Cer. Initiated and managed by Federconsumatori Lazio, which in turn was called upon to intervene by the municipality of Rome, which had been solicited by the Leonarda Vaccari. "It was July 2021," recounts Stefano Monticelli, then a member of Federconsumatori Lazio and now president of Scenario B, the association that manages Cer Le Vele, "when on the instructions of Rome's Municipality 1 I went to talk to the headmistress of the Vaccari Institute, Professor Dandini, to propose Cer to her. I was overwhelmed by an incredible enthusiasm and empathy. We were very close to making the Community sit down'.

Instead, a complex legal-regulatory architecture and governance had to be put in place. Deed of incorporation and statute tailor-made for a particular reality, promoting Cer on the roof of a public body, in the historic centre of Rome. "We did it very quickly, also because the municipality adopted a resolution making all the roofs of municipal buildings immediately available to energy communities. A measure that will be very useful in the future'.

In December 2022, the community was already established. On 21 November 2023, the photovoltaic system was inaugurated, which had meanwhile been built by Edison and donated to the school thanks to the intervention of the Energy Bank. A 198-panel system with a capacity of 82 kilowatt hours. "When we reached the threshold of two million contracts in Italy," says Massimo Quaglini, managing director of Edison Energia, "we donated two million to the Energy Bank. We joined Cer del Vaccari in Rome with great conviction. It was the first project for us. We have just completed a second one in Milan, in the Greco district, in the Santa Maria Goretti parish, and we have two others in the field in Foggia and Calabria'. Edison, in addition to donating the system, provides assistance and maintenance and has fixed the Vaccari's systems and switchboards, which were in a precarious condition.