Since 2013 self-consumption in Italy has had an organic discipline, based on the basic principle that production and consumption must be on the same site and that in a self-consumption system there can be no more than one consumer and one producer.

Until yesterday, the only form of self-consumption of energy allowed at a residential level was the one to one one: from a single system to a single final consumer, with excess production to be fed into the grid.

A decisive change of pace was made with the transposition (in progress) of the latest European Directives, in particular the contents of articles 21 and 22 of Directive 2018/2001, with which the applicable laws of collective self-consumption and energy associations and communities, legal entities made up of a series of users located in the same geographical area, between which the exchange and sharing of the energy produced is allowed.

In particular, art. 42 bis of the Decree 162 30/12/2019 ("Milleproroghe"), in partial implementation of the 2018/2001 Directive, gives the faculty to interested users to join together collectively for the management of the energy produced within this aggregate, and in paragraph 5 letter c) provides that "relations between them may be regular through a private law contract that takes into account the provisions of letters a) and b) and that uniquely identifies a delegated subject, responsible for the distribution of shared energy. they may also delegate to this subject the management of payment and collection items to the sellers and the Energy Services Manager (GSE) Spa."

The most recent resolution no. 318/2020 of the Regulatory Authority for Energy, Networks and Environment (ARERA) also introduced the rules for regulating the economic items within the Energy Communities, envisaging the introduction of a system of incentive tariffs for the energy produced and consumed at internal of the latter. The economic incentive regime will be specified by a forthcoming Decree of the Ministry of Economic Development (MISE).

In this scenario, Engena proposes itself as the ideal interpreter of the needs of an Energy Community, thanks to its platform that will allow anyone wishing to adopt it, the intelligent and automatic management of the various functions of any energy aggregation of consumers/prosumers.

Sharing the energy produced within a community opens up scenarios that were unthinkable until today; it will finally be possible to produce and exchange clean energy in condominiums and between companies, between public buildings and commercial activities.

So the way is open for local projects for self-production plants but also for exchanging excess energy locally, with a reduction in waste and both environmental and economic benefits for businesses, families and communities.

The production, storage and sale of energy would turn into a one to many model.

This is only the beginning of a process that will largely affect these innovations; innovations in even broader forms will be possible, which will make it possible to relaunch projects from renewable sources throughout Italy that involve communities to take advantage of wind, solar and hydroelectric plants.

And the typical blockchain structure is the ideal solution to support the system, also helping to reduce the overloads and inefficiencies deriving from the introduction of energy into the grid by prosumers and not consumed locally.