Resources

This publication is the POCITYF Best Practice Book. It gathers the achievements, best practices, lessons learned and recommendations produced by the demonstration activities of POCITYF, a Horizon 2020 Smart Cities and Communities Lighthouse project that set out to deliver Positive Energy Districts in cities with protected cultural heritage. Heritage cities welcome innnovation documents the deployed solutions city by city. For each one it sets out what was installed and where, the barriers encountered, the lessons learned and the conditions under which the solution can be replicated elsewhere. The publication addresses city administrations, energy planners, technology providers, heritage authorities and researchers working on urban decarbonisation in contexts where standard solutions cannot be applied.

The infopack "Renewable energy community: lessons learned and recommendations from POCITYF's use case in Valverde, Évora" shares lessons and policy recommendations from the renewable energy community pilot in Valverde, near Évora. It covers a scalable model combining rooftop PV, battery storage and peer-to-peer trading, tested with regulator ERSE, and calls for streamlined regulation, better funding access, and interoperable digital tools to scale up energy communities.

The European-funded project POCITYF links two lighthouse cities, Évora and Alkmaar, with six fellow cities: Granada, Bari, Ioannina, Celje, Upjest, and Hvidovre. The infopack "The Replication Effect : Knowledge transfer tools for turning city experience into local action" showcases tools and activities set out by POCITYF for the Fellow Cities to reach a practical objective: to make replication plans effective and useful.

Renewable energy communities are defined as groups of citizens, businesses, and local authorities that come together to produce, consume, and share renewable energy. In this paper, insights about how a Multi-Agent System-based Community Energy Management System can manage interactions and real-time energy exchanges within a REC are given. Based on a real-world case study, results reveal an effective and efficient operation.

Based on experiences from Alkmaar and Évora, this article published by Ceciel Nieuwenhout and Lea Diestelmeier for the University of Groningen assesses whether energy communities are suitable to develop PEDs in cities from an EU law perspective. Although a promising concept, there are some mismatches between the legal definition and the needs of PEDs in reality.

One of the possibilities to relieve grid congestion increase in the Netherlands is local optimisation in Positive Energy Districts (PEDs) Although the concept PED knows no legal definition, various legal issues impact PEDs. This article first introduces the PED concept and the EU law basis, after which it compares the current legal framework in the Netherlands with the future situation after adoption of the new Energy Act (2024). The article concludes with an analysis and recommendations regarding changes to Dutch energy law that further facilitate the implementation of PEDs.

INESC TEC provides empirical insights into how energy-poor citizens exercise agency through engagement behaviors and offers actionable insights for designing measures to mitigate energy poverty, in complementarity with technical and economical solutions.

This study  contributes to advancing our understanding of customer and citizen engagement by developing a new framework through the qualitative analysis of 126 articles. The integrated framework highlights the interplay between citizen and customer roles and the impact of their relationships with multiple objects on sustainability.

This doctoral thesis proposes a novel approach to characterizing and managing energy flexibility in renewable energy communities, focusing on event-based devices and considering Portuguese legislation. It introduces a new framework for energy sharing and demonstrates how energy flexibility can benefit both consumers and prosumers while enhancing energy sharing strategies.

Find here the presentations from the speakers of the webinar jointly organised with STARDUST.