Four local energy communities in Europe will be involved by the H2020 RENAISSANCE Project, which develops new smart-contracts and tests operational solutions in demonstrator sites.

Started in May 2019, RENAISSANCE Project delivers a community-driven, scalable and replicable approach to implement new business models and technologies. Its ultimate goal is to push forward innovations for clean production and shared distribution of energy.

Connected energy communities are considered top players by RENAISSANCE. Its ambition is to significantly improve the uptake of local integrated renewable energy grids and likely reduce consumer prices at least by 10-15%.

Many models have already been developed to integrate distributed energy resources in the energy grid, such as virtual power plants, community groups, and energy hubs. However, they mostly focus on technical aspects. The limited momentum for such technical solution uptake is due to low engagement of local communities and too many regulatory barriers. Therefore, public policies concerning energy distribution will be challenged to better mirror the needs of future prosumers.

RENAISSANCE underlying concept is to combine novel micro-grid design and management tools with existing energy generation and storage technologies. This will allow the identification of business cases and subsequent operational solutions, to maximise value capturing and renewable energy delivery for end-users.

Thanks to Local Levelised Cost of Energy (LLCOE), comparison with current centralized energy systems becomes possible. This approach is expected to help create market opportunities (for hardware, software and services) driven by economic value and increased community engagement.

Local consumers want low-cost, hassle-free energy at their disposal: the key challenge is to support the shift from technology-driven approaches to consumer-driven approaches, envisioning more efficient distribution grids.

The RENAISSANCE project will explore and test in real-life conditions innovative business models and technologies in four pilot sites demonstrators, in Belgium, Greece, Spain and the Netherlands.


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The RENAISSANCE - "RENewAble Integration and SuStainAbility iN energy CommunitiEs" Innovation Action is funded by the European Commission under the topic "Integrated local energy systems (Energy Islands)" [H2020-LC-SC3-2018-2019-2020].