30 Sep 2026 — POCITYF’s Open Innovation Call received fifteen ideas in just over a day, with fourteen proposals selected from Spain, Portugal, Slovenia and Greece
Six ideas arrived in under six minutes. Just over 27 hours after the Open Innovation Call opened, fifteen proposals had been submitted, with fourteen meeting the eligibility criteria and being selected. All of them address a shared challenge: how can a historic city become cleaner without losing what makes it unique? POCITYF launched the call as one of its final activities, fostering fresh ideas from the public . The call was open to adults in eight countries, and ideas had to align with the project’s four Energy Transition Tracks. The ideas came from Spain, Portugal, Slovenia and Greece.
Electric mobility: six ideas look at how people and goods move through narrow streets. Renew2Drive would alert drivers when charging suits the grid best. DriveCommons would put shared electric cars in the hands of energy communities in Ioannina. e-CoMove Granada offers secure, solar-powered parking for e-bikes and e-scooters. Heritage e-Logistics Hub, Micro-Mobility and Universal Accessibility for Historical Centers bring cargo bikes and compact electric vehicles to deliveries and to older visitors. An e-mobility app from Slovenia rewards people for leaving the car at home.
Citizen-driven Social Innovation: four ideas start with residents and their streets. Living Heritage would combine open data, environmental monitoring and resident feedback to test small changes that respect heritage. Route Alive would guide people along the most comfortable walking routes, using green pergolas, living walls and sensors. Social Economy Energy Communities for Historic Neighbourhoods would let residents who cannot fit panels on protected roofs share a municipal rooftop solar plant in Granada, with 5% of the energy going to households in energy poverty. Historic Centre Mobility Hubs suggests testing bike and e-scooter parking at a single entrance to a historic centre.
Positive Energy Buildings and Districts: three ideas ask how protected buildings can join the energy transition. HERA is an AI assistant that checks a planned retrofit against local heritage rules and suggests options that comply, such as coloured solar tiles. Of course, the final decisions would be for the heritage officers. Heritage Energy Match would link protected buildings with nearby roofs and spaces that can host renewable generation. Smart Urban Oasis: Climate-Resilient Benches for Historic Centers takes the question to the street, with self-powered benches that use plant walls and misting to cool stone-paved centres in summer.
Flexible Infrastructure: one idea looks at the grid itself. HERIFLEX starts from a hard fact: old networks in historic centres often cannot carry the heat pumps residents need, and protected pavements cannot be dug up to reinforce them. It proposes to map spare capacity street by street, and let households connect heat pumps in exchange for power limits during a few critical hours a year, and open a local market where neighbours earn by easing pressure on the grid.
As the HERA proposal puts it: “The main bottleneck is regulatory, not technological.” Several other ideas share this view and explore how existing solutions can be adapted, shared and coordinated in places where heritage protection limits conventional infrastructure upgrades. Six propose starting with a small-scale pilot.
The people behind the fourteen selected ideas will now receive an electric scooter, with deliveries expected in the coming days.
Photo credits Perawit Boonchu
