‘We’re proud to be pioneers’: inside Spain’s community energy revolution

From Taradell to Galicia, cooperatives are supplying cheap, clean electricity to homes and helping tackle fuel poverty

It began in the small Catalan town of Taradell as a plan to provide local people with allotments where they could grow their own food.

Four activists came together with the aim of promoting good environmental practices in local agriculture and business, as well as supplying renewable energy. The project, however, was about much more than growing vegetables.