In order to mitigate climate change effects, urgent action is required in all sectors of the economy to significantly reduce greenhouse gases (GHG) emission. Energy System Models (ESM) are tools that help energy analysts, planners and policy makers to rationally describe energy systems and systematically evaluate the impacts of long-term scenarios. On the supply side, ESMs have provided useful results, but however, on the demand side, they lack the degree of accuracy required for proper characterization of, among others, the use of energy in households. One of the intrinsic difficulties is that energy demand in the residential sector is influenced by a myriad of factors (like the high diversity of dwellings, socio-economic conditions of the social/family units, and behavioral-related consumption patterns) that cannot easily be accounted for in traditional ESMs. To overcome this challenge, the novel Causal Modeling will be used to quantitatively analyse human decision making in energy consumption and their reactions to interventions (e.g. policy changes). This will be combined with an innovative FFORMA approach which allows multiple different load profiles to be categorised by a set of vectors describing it. WHY will therefore create innovative methodologies for short and long term load forecasting. The WHY modeling will allow to directly assess the impact of a multitude of policies on the energy system as well as performing both ex-ante and ex-post assessment over policy measures. WHY will therefore contribute to a holistic understanding of household energy consumption and improved demand modelling. The WHY toolkit will be used to assess several scenarios simulating different policy measures. Integration with widely-used ESMs (PRIMES, TIMES) will be demonstrated and the results analyzed. All results will be open-sourced to maximize uptake, and be widely disseminated to diverse target audiences (i.e. DSOs, energy companies, policy makers, researchers).

While community energy is about to play a huge role for the future energy transition, bioenergy has a very slow development in decentralised energy production. BECoop’s ambition is to foster a broad deployment of bioenergy technologies in the heating sector (across Europe by providing all the necessary conditions and support tools for unlocking the underlying market potential of community bioenergy. By using BECoop support services and tools, energy communities and authorities will be able to (i) mobilize citizens around existing or new community bioenergy initiatives, (ii) boost local bioenergy demand by improving its image and social acceptance, and (iii) increase feasibility of their endeavors by identifying suitable technical, business and financial solutions, as well as by pooling expertise and partnerships from the wider EU bioenergy ecosystem. In order to showcase and build trust to our approach, we pilot our to a complementary set of 4 cases across Europe, targeting existing energy communities seeking to include bioenergy heating projects, and local/national authorities aiming at initiating novel bioenergy community structures in support of their clean energy transition goals. BECoop moves beyond local challenges as we replicate our concept to more EU cases, thus, improving the robustness and attractiveness of community bioenergy investments. BECoop will also create links between the international Bioenergy Community, increase its audience, and foster new partnerships. Relevant policy and regulatory structures will be empowered with empirical evidence indicating ways to transfer the community energy approach in bioenergy and heating. Finally, the project is backed by a multidisciplinary consortium covering all relevant stakeholders and knowledge requirements. It also includes key stakeholders that are considered natural recipients of its results (existing energy communities, RESCoop Federations and local/national authorities).

The main objective of the CHESTER project is the development and validation of an innovative system that allows for energy management, storage and dispatchable supply of many different RES by combining the electricity sector with the heat sector. This is done by combining an innovative power-to-heat-to-power energy storage system, the so called CHEST (Compressed Heat Energy Storage) system with Smart District Heating thus leading to a very flexible and smart renewable energy management system that is able to store electric energy with a round trip efficiency of 100% or even higher, site-independent unlike pumped hydro, cyclically stable unlike batteries, able to convert power into heat, able to convert renewable low temperature heat into power, able to store and deliver independently from each other upon request both, heat and power, cost competitive. CHEST is based on existing technology (heat pump, thermal storage and ORC) but ground breaking advancements are necessary to ensure a high-efficient and cost-competitive CHEST system. A smart system control strategy will be developed, including the implementation of forecasting models, that allows the system to use the energy in the most cost efficient, technically appropriate and flexible way. It will consider the interaction with the electric grid (supply and demand side), the interaction with the district heating network and the integration of other heat sources. A complete 10 kWel laboratory CHEST system will be built and validated in a relevant environment. Overall TRL will be increased from 3 to 5. All relevant exploitation and dissemination issues will be covered. The CHEST system, a promising energy storage and management system, will be key towards the achievement of energy objectives and mitigating the energy challenges of the future energy system. Large scale plants (multi-MW range) at cost- competitive costs (130€/kWh) could reach the market by 2025.

The main objective of POWERPOOR is to develop support programmes/schemes for energy poor citizens and encourage the use of alternative financing schemes (e.g. establishing energy communities / cooperatives, crowd funding). POWERPOOR will facilitate experience and knowledge sharing, as well as the implementation of small-scale energy efficiency interventions and the installation of renewable energy sources, increasing the active participation of citizens. Pilot energy poor support programmes/schemes will be designed, developed and implemented in eight countries across Europe, led by a network of certified Energy Supporters and Energy Communities Mentors. The Energy Supporters / Mentors will support (more than 22,000) energy poor households to plan and implement energy efficiency interventions, as well as participate in joint energy initiatives. Energy poor citizens will be engaged through various planned activities, such as Info Days, Local Energy Poverty Offices, and ICT-driven tools (Energy Poverty Mitigation Toolkit). The establishment of the Stakeholders Liaison Groups will also facilitate the engagement and the provision of support to energy poor households. Guidelines on how to tackle energy poverty in Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans will also be developed. Based on the experience gained and the lessons learnt from implementing POWERPOOR, EU policy recommendations and 8 National Roadmaps will be elaborated, so that policy makers at all governance levels can learn from the project. The project results will be broadly disseminated, and synergies will be pursued with global and EU initiatives, such as the EU Energy Poverty Observatory and the (EU and Global) Covenant of Mayors on Energy and Climate. The participation of networks in the Consortium will strengthen the dissemination and exploitation of POWERPOOR outputs across Europe during and beyond the project implementation.

SmartLivingEPC project aims to deliver a certificate which will be issued with the use of digitized tools and retrieve the necessary assessment information for the building shell and building systems from BIM literacy, including enriched energy and sustainability related information for the as designed and the actual performance of the building. SmartLivingEPC will provide information in relation to the operational behaviour of the building, by introducing a new rating scale, based on a weighted approach of life cycle performance aspects, building smartness assessment and information on the actual performance of the technical systems of buildings provided by technical audits. The new methodologies to be developed, will be based on existing European standards, whereas at the same time, they will trigger the development of new technical standards for smart energy performance certificates. The new certification scheme will also expand its scope, covering aspects related to water consumption, as well as noise pollution and acoustics. SmartLivingEPC certificate will be fully compatible with digital logbooks, as well as with building renovation passports in order to allow the integration of the building energy performance information in digital databases. A special aspect of SmartLivingEPC will be its application in building complexes, with the aim of energy certification at the neighbourhood scale. SmartLivingEPC aspires to develop two parallel schemes, one at the building level (Building EPC) and one at the level of building complex level (Complex EPC), with the ultimate goal in the near future of certification of building complexes, based on the certification of individual units, as well as on additional aspects following an integrated participatory and neighborhood based approach. 16 partners from 12 European countries will collaborate and provide their expertise and resources within the 36 months of SmartLivingEPC lifetime.