Periodic Reporting for period 2 - COMMUNITAS (Bound to accelerate the roll-out and expansion of Energy Communities and empower consumers as fully-fledged energy market players)
Berichtszeitraum: 2024-01-01 bis 2025-03-31
With the new concepts of “Renewable Energy Communities” (RECs) and “Citizen Energy Communities” (CECs) introduced in the “Clean Energy for all Europeans” package (CEP), community energy projects were recognised and instrumentally brought forward, setting the course for a more active role of EU citizens in the energy markets. To fully concretize the benefits envisioned by the CEP, a myriad of barriers need to be overcome, and progress needs to be made to clarify and streamline the concepts of REC and CEC, enabling their uptake by all interested citizens.
Motivated by that challenge, COMMUNITAS will promote energy citizenship, enabling citizens to take control of their own path towards sustainability by becoming an active element of the energy markets. The project will deliver a Knowledge Base that will provide users with technical, administrative, and legal information on ECs, streamlining the creation and expansion of this concept. COMMUNITAS will also deliver an innovative set of tools - capitalizing on technologies such as IoT, Blockchain and Cloud Computing - to unlock citizens’ active participation in energy markets and communities (all integrated into an open, digital “one-stop-shop” COMMUNITAS Core Platform), allowing EC members to have an aggregated position in the energy markets or explore ancillary services using different energy assets or load profiles of the community.
As a project that aims to position citizens in the centre of energy markets, COMMUNITAS has citizens at the centre of its own approach: citizens will be involved in Social and Policy Labs throughout the whole project in order to frequently factor in their feedback, wishes, and needs into the core developments of the project.
Motivated by that challenge, COMMUNITAS will promote energy citizenship, enabling citizens to take control of their own path towards sustainability by becoming an active element of the energy markets. The project will deliver a Knowledge Base that will provide users with technical, administrative, and legal information on ECs, streamlining the creation and expansion of this concept. COMMUNITAS will also deliver an innovative set of tools - capitalizing on technologies such as IoT, Blockchain and Cloud Computing - to unlock citizens’ active participation in energy markets and communities (all integrated into an open, digital “one-stop-shop” COMMUNITAS Core Platform), allowing EC members to have an aggregated position in the energy markets or explore ancillary services using different energy assets or load profiles of the community.
As a project that aims to position citizens in the centre of energy markets, COMMUNITAS has citizens at the centre of its own approach: citizens will be involved in Social and Policy Labs throughout the whole project in order to frequently factor in their feedback, wishes, and needs into the core developments of the project.
Throughout the second year of the project, efforts were directed towards the deployment and demonstration of COMMUNITAS solutions. In that context, the COMMUNITAS Knowledge Base, a repository of all the information that a citizen might need to set up or join an Energy Community, and all technical tools were deployed. At the same time, all pilots' activities started with the deployment of monitoring devices, with a clear alignment between WP activities and needs, ensuring a clear information loop from pilots to technical developers.
In the next phase, the tools were presented to pilots, to take into consideration their feedback and to align a clear message to all users. At the same time, workshops that promoted interaction with the target audience for COMMUNITAS solutions feedback started, opening the methodology that was developed for continuous citizen engagement activities, with the Social and Policy Labs now running.
Work was carried out in the COMMUNITAS Core Platform, with the deployment of the platform, and connection to all tools, and three different pilots.
From an R&D perspective, insights from the first year that reflected several key areas, such as financing, regulatory, technical, or social, in combination with the value-based proposition design for citizen engagement and the methodology built for COMMUNITAS Social and Policy Labs, the consortium published an in-depth scientific article to share these outcomes with the scientific community. Furthermore, scientific publications were presented regarding demand-response and peer-to-peer mechanisms for energy sharing.
Thinking of the next phase of the tool, the exploitation roadmap of the tools started, with the definition of IPr matrix, business models, and scalability layers.
In the next phase, the tools were presented to pilots, to take into consideration their feedback and to align a clear message to all users. At the same time, workshops that promoted interaction with the target audience for COMMUNITAS solutions feedback started, opening the methodology that was developed for continuous citizen engagement activities, with the Social and Policy Labs now running.
Work was carried out in the COMMUNITAS Core Platform, with the deployment of the platform, and connection to all tools, and three different pilots.
From an R&D perspective, insights from the first year that reflected several key areas, such as financing, regulatory, technical, or social, in combination with the value-based proposition design for citizen engagement and the methodology built for COMMUNITAS Social and Policy Labs, the consortium published an in-depth scientific article to share these outcomes with the scientific community. Furthermore, scientific publications were presented regarding demand-response and peer-to-peer mechanisms for energy sharing.
Thinking of the next phase of the tool, the exploitation roadmap of the tools started, with the definition of IPr matrix, business models, and scalability layers.
The main results and impacts achieved so far are related to the deployment and testing of solutions. Through the testing of functionalities, UX/UI experience, and data analytics, the project aims to deliver real insights into citizens' energy markets participation. This testing also means insights on regulatory approaches in the different pilot countries, as well engagement strategies for energy communities at different stages. Finally, the business models' development will further integrate the demonstration activities.