With its “Clean Energy for all Europeans” package (CEP), the European Commission formally recognised and instrumentally brought forward community energy projects, including definitions for “Renewable Energy Communities” (RECs) and for “Citizen Energy Communities” (CECs). The new concepts introduced in the CEP set 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 needs to be overcome and progress needs to be done to clarify and streamline the concepts of REC and CEC, enabling its 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 (CCP)), 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, needs into the core developments of the project.

PRECEPT ambitiously aims to set the grounds for the deployment and operation of proactive residential buildings. The proposed framework introduces a “plug-n-play” Pred(scr)ictive and Proactive building energy management system (PP-BMS) installed locally at building level, at the Edge-Enable Proactiveness (EEP) device. The proposed PP-BMS is self-adapted, self-learned, -managed, -monitored, -healing and -optimized, requiring no (or minimum) installation costs and no maintenance. PP-BMS transform traditional reactive buildings to proactive ones, increasing their performance (both energy efficiency and occupants’ well-being), exploiting RES, storage, forecasts and energy tariffs. PRECEPT also targets to the development of a real-time digital representation of the intelligent proactive residential buildings by employing 6D BIM technology. Further to that, a set of novel indicators leveraging on the smart readiness rationale will be introduced for rating the Smart Proactiveness of buildings. The proposed indicators will enable the introduction of a reliable framework under which the comparative assessment of the level of smartness and proactiveness of buildings can be regulated and assessed. Also, PRECEPT approach will deliver advanced data visualizations, utilizing big-data and visual analytics techniques, which in conjunction with a social collaboration platform will engage stakeholders to exchange best-practices. Interaction with the grid will be supported in a secured (Hyperledger Fabric) manner through the decentralized EEP device, supporting the implementation of D/R strategies. To maximize its potential impact, PRECEPT demonstrates novel sustainable business models for rendering traditional reactive buildings to proactive buildings that go beyond the energy-related benefits and cost-optimal analysis but include occupants’ well-being, and other services. PRECEPT framework will be demonstrated in relevant environments in 5 use cases, including 250 apartments.

Heat4Cool proposes an innovative, efficient and cost-effective solution to optimize the integration of a set of rehabilitation systems in order to meet the net-zero energy standards. The project develops, integrates and demonstrates an easy to install and highly energy efficient solution for building retrofitting that begins from the Heat4Cool advanced decision-making tool (which addresses the building and district characteristics) and leads to the optimal solution combining (1) gas and solar thermally driven adsorption heat pumps, which permits the full integration with existing natural gas boilers to ensure efficient use of current equipment , (2) solar PV assisted DC powered heat pump connected to an advanced modular PCM heat and cold storage system, and (3) energy recovery from sewage water with high performance heat exchangers. This retrofitting solution together with a closer interaction between building monitoring, demand/respond supply match, weather forecast and HVAC activation/control through a Self-Correcting Intelligent Building Energy Management Systems (SCI-BEMS) will save at least 10% of energy consumption. The project will implement four benchmark retrofitting projects in four different European climates to achieve a reduction of at least 20% in energy consumption in a technically, socially, and financially feasible manner and demonstrate a return on investment of 8 years. The Heat4Cool consortium will ensure the maximum replication potential of the Heat4Cool solution by a continuous monitoring of technical and economic barriers during the development and validation phases in order to present the building owners and investors with clear energy and economic evidence of the value of implementing Heat4Cool solution. A detailed business plan will be developed in the beginning of the project to strengthen the exploitation plan of the retrofitting package and set the basis for a massive replication of the demonstrated concept across Europe.

inteGRIDy aims to integrate cutting-edge technologies, solutions and mechanisms in a scalable Cross-Functional Platform connecting energy networks with diverse stakeholders, facilitating optimal and dynamic operation of the Distribution Grid (DG), fostering the stability and coordination of distributed energy resources and enabling collaborative storage schemes within an increasing share of renewables. inteGRIDy will: a) Integrate innovative smart grid technologies, enabling optimal and dynamic operation of the distribution system’s assets within high grid reliability and stability standards b) Validate innovative Demand Response technologies and relevant business models c) Utilize storage technologies and their capabilities to relieve the DG and enable significant avoidance of RES curtailment, enhancing self-consumption and net metering d) Enable interconnection with transport and heat networks, forming Virtual Energy Network synergies ensuring energy security e) Provide modelling & profiling extraction for network topology representation, innovative DR mechanisms and Storage characterization, facilitating decision making in DG’s operations f) Provide predictive, forecasting tools & scenario-based simulation, facilitating an innovative Operation Analysis Framework g) Develop new business and services to create value for distribution domain stakeholders and end users/prosumers in an emerging electricity market. inteGRIDy will impact on: a) operations by reconfigurable topology control & supervision b) market by providing new services c) customer by enhanced engagement through DR mechanisms d) transmission by novel forecasting scenarios for the MV/LV areas e) part of the production incorporating innovative storage targeting the optimum use of RES f) environment by CO2 reduction inteGRIDy approach will be deployed and validated in 6 large-scale and 4 small-scale real-life demonstration covering different climatic zones and markets with different maturity.

REEFLEX aims to generate niches of opportunities for new cross-sector energy services provided by SMEs and start-ups in demand side flexibility markets and to increase participation of energy consumers in demand side flexibility markets. The project develops a central interoperability platform and a catalogue of services with the capability of maximising distributed energy resources' flexibility while respecting the different end user profiles and needs along with the physical limitations of existing infrastructures. Additionally, the generation of a common operation market model together with AI-driven intelligence services and automation systems, enabled through the utilization of distributed ledger technologies for enhancing transparency and trust, will reduce market entry barriers and costs and achieve a higher participation from energy consumers. They will benefit from new revenues obtained through data and flexibility transactions, while enjoying innovative, personalized, data (intelligence)-driven services for smart, human-centric control of their assets in the frame of demand response or self-consumption. REEFLEX solutions, they will be demonstrated and cross-tested in 4 main demonstrators (Spain, Greece, Switzerland, Bulgaria) with different characteristics, allowing evaluation of their impact under alternative scenarios and integrating a variety of sectors, such as residential buildings, mobility, commercial establishments, industrial sites or data centres, among others. In addition, the services catalogue will be further replicated in three additional replicators across Europe to achieve wider coverage (Turkey, Portugal, Denmark) and adaptation, ending-up in a total of 7 countries for the whole project execution. These cross-tested demonstrators and additional replication campaigns are structured around 8 different use cases that cover a comprehensive set of consumer groups to participate in up to 12 demand side flexibility services.