Salbertrand

Salbertrand is a municipality of the Metropolitan City of Turin, located in the Upper Susa Valley. Together with the neighbouring municipality of Exilles, it is involved in a renewable-energy project that aims to share the solar power generated by homes, including those used only for holidays or short periods of the year, with local residents and businesses.^[1]

The virtual self-consumption project

The initiative is run by CER Sinergie, a Piedmontese organisation set up in 2024 with the aim of promoting participatory management of electricity produced from sustainable sources. The proposed model allows households, businesses and local authorities to join a collective body to make the most of local electricity production through the mechanism of virtual self-consumption.^[1]

A building fitted with solar panels generates electricity during hours of sunlight: the owner uses part of it for their own needs, while the remaining amount is fed into the public grid. When other participants in the project draw electricity during the same time window, the system credits a share of shared production, on the basis of which the economic benefits set out in the regulations are calculated.^[1]

The role of the Vazon primary substation

For the area of Salbertrand and Exilles, the technical link to the self-consumption system runs through the electrical infrastructure identified at the Vazon primary substation, which determines which users can be included in the same configuration. Taking part in the project therefore requires checking the characteristics of the electricity supply and its geographical location.^[1]

Homes used only at certain times of the year

Alpine locations such as Salbertrand have a high number of properties occupied only at certain times of the year, during holidays, the summer months or the winter season, while often standing empty the rest of the time. A solar panel, however, keeps producing electricity even when the home is empty, with the resulting power, given very low household consumption, largely able to be fed back into the grid. The project launched in Salbertrand aims precisely to make the most of this gap between energy availability and the homes' actual use.^[1]

Timeline

26 October 2026 — In Salbertrand and Exilles, in the Upper Susa Valley, the CER Sinergie cooperative launches a virtual self-consumption project that connects, via the Vazon primary substation, the solar power generated by homes used only at certain times of the year, to share the energy with local residents, households and businesses. → Torino Free

Sources

Alta Valle di Susa, l’energia solare delle seconde case sarà condivisa con i residenti — Torino Free, 26 October 2026