The focus of the project is to gain a better understanding in how to set up and roll out energy communities and energy efficiency services. The project builds on the knowledge and work within the EU Bridge initiative, ETIP SNET and others. In order to deliver this project successfully, the consortium includes a complementary group of experts on social science, policy and regulation, implementation, energy aggregation and energy service developers. The project focusses on 3 levels of Energy Communities: those existing at the start of the project and included in the work plan as such; those that will be initiated throughout the project and those not directly partnering in the project, but benefiting from the exchange and expertise of DECIDE. All together they provide a set of complementary and geographically well-spread cases: social housing, middle class and upper class neighbourhoods covering Greece, Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, Estonia, Germany and France. All together these pilots will deliver the necessary cases for a sound outreach built on an extensive social science basis. The project will work on identifying which kind of individuals and groups need what kind of communication and interaction to be motivated to join; i.e. work on identifying stakeholder segmentation to reach maximum input by targeted actions and prioritization in stakeholder segments. Different methods will be tested and evaluated with the different identified groups, including techniques as intergenerational learning. The outreach is active: instead of a toolbox with reports, presentations, templates, ... we want you to learn HOW to reach impact and do that through webinars, workshops, interactive sessions at diverse conferences, ...

InterConnect envisages to contribute for the democratization of efficient energy management, through a flexible and interoperable ecosystem where demand side flexibility can be soundly integrated with effective benefits to end-users. In fact, over the last few years several projects and technology providers have come up with solutions that allow every energy user to have awareness and control over his appliances, but there has always been a major issue with interoperability. End-users should be able to choose and change their technology providers, without having to replace their installation, every time they feel this need and still be able to adopt sustainable behaviour and benefit from technological advances. In the energy sector, a steep move towards digital is occurring and becoming tremendously user-centric and market-driven. The system dimension is significant, as the number of energy service providers is increasing thanks to favourable regulatory environment and technology advancements for monitoring and control. This is the reason why this consortium integrates relevant partners from all the representative stakeholders in this new energy paradigm. Specific competences in ICT, IoT, energy, data science, software, were included and the full value chain, from R&D institutions, manufacturers, DSO, retailers, IT providers, and energy users is represented. To guarantee a higher Europe-wide impact, several relevant associations related with ICT and energy are also involved. To achieve a significant dimension, 7 large scale pilots, in different countries and with different end-users, are foreseen to guarantee representativeness and dimension in terms of number of appliances and services. The overarching objective of these pilots is to demonstrate a real digital market environment over electrical systems with significant amounts of DSF, reducing operational and investment costs that will benefit energy end-users and help EU achieve its energy efficiency objectives.

The increased shares of renewable energy, combined with the rise in distributed generation are profoundly impacting electricity markets and the demand for system flexibility and business models of traditional utilities and distribution companies. This requires a rethinking of the way power sector markets are designed and operated as well as a timely and efficient adaptation of traditional market and operational mechanisms. The recent created clean energy legislation requires that Electricity Markets are created with “active customers/consumers and citizens” and “energy communities”. This new legislation asks for enhanced roles of DSOs and TSOs, particularly for a better coordination among stakeholders, procurement of ancillary services, flexibility, data management and integration of Electric Vehicles and must adapt network access and congestion tariffs & charges (flexibility). Markets must encourage the development of more flexible generation and demand and the elimination of obstacles to market-based pricing, remove regulatory distortions, enable scarcity pricing, interconnection, Demand Side Response and storage. Final customers must be enabled to buy electricity generation from aggregated, multiple power-generating facilities or load from multiple demand response facilities to provide joint offers on the electricity market and be jointly operated in the electricity system. Citizens must be offered competitive prices. BeFlexible aims at increasing energy system flexibility, enhancing cooperation among DSOs and TSOs and easing participation of all energy-related actors through the validation and large-scale demonstration of adapted and proven cross-sectoral services, interoperable platforms for smart grids operation developing further already demonstrated solutions and the creation of required system architecture framework to enable the creation of new business models providing additional value to meet consumers’ needs in compliance with a stable regulatory framework.

RES4BUILD will develop renewable-eneRRES4BUILD develops renewable energy-based solutions for decarbonising the energy used in buildings. The approach of the project is flexible, so that the solutions are applicable to a wide variety of buildings, new or renovated, tailored to their size, their type and the climatic zones of their location. In the heart of the solution lies an innovative multi-source heat pump with a cascading configuration, including a magnetocaloric (bottom cycle) and a vapour compression heat pump (top cycle). The heat pump will be combined with other technologies in tailored made solutions that suit the specific needs of each building. These technologies will be selected on a case by case basis from a mix of standard equipment available in the market and from innovative components that will be specifically explored within the project. The innovative technologies include innovative collectors that integrate in one panel photovoltaic cells and solar thermal energy collectors (PV/T) and borehole thermal energy storage (BTES). For all solutions, advanced modelling and control approaches will be developed and will be integrated in a Building Energy Management System, allowing the users to select their objectives and to optimise the use of the system accordingly, allowing the activation of demand response and the exploitation of the full value of smart appliances and smart charging of electric vehicles. The project adopts a co-development methodology, where the end-users and other relevant stakeholders are engaged in an interactive process, where a RES$BUILD system is designed for their buildings with their active participation. In parallel, a full life cycle assessment and life cycle costing analysis will be carried out, showing from an early stage the real impact of each proposed design. The diverse consortium and the dedicated exploitation tasks will connect the project with the market, paving the way for wide application of the developed solutions.

TRUST promotes an interdisciplinary research program, involving academic and non-academic institutions, in order to understand the role of trust in the implementation of digital technologies and suggest actual means of development. Assuming that the digital transformation of European society can be fully achieved only if technologies evolve in a trustworthy environment, the project analyses the mutual influence between trust and digital technologies in order to raise relational reliance in people-to-people, people-to-business and people-to-authorities interactions. The attention is on blockchain technology (BCT) as one of the most relevant forms of Distributed Ledger Technology. BCT is considered a trust-building machine as it creates new forms of relational reliance. BCT projects the issue of trust in a new dimension that we intend to explore, in adherence with the initiatives and key actions promoted by the EC in the Communication “Shaping Europe’s digital future” (COM (2020) 67final), where it is remarked that trust and digital transformation of society go hand-in-hand. The research and knowledge transfer programme evolves around key topics, such as: the development of a suitable regulatory framework for the effective integration of BTC in a trust-based society; the transition towards a fair and competitive peer to peer economy; the applications of BTC in the field of AI, to assure security and trust; the development of new models of collaborative governance for smart and trust-based cities. The consortium gathers expertise from different backgrounds (legal, economic, engineering), belonging to EU countries, as well as Israel and China. Complementary research perspectives, innovative training and international/intersectoral cooperation will boost staff careers development by studying how the use of digital technologies can shape a trustworthy European environment, in which citizens are empowered in how they act and interact, and promote economic growth as well.