Periodic Reporting for period 2 - RESCHOOL (Strategies and tOOls for Incentivization and management of flexibility in Energy Communities with distributed Resources)
Reporting period: 2024-07-01 to 2025-06-30
RESCHOOL aims to develop tools and methods to enhance and facilitate the collective participation (energy communities) of citizens in the energy system and the relationship with other stakeholders like DSOs, aggregators, or other energy communities. A social approach, based on collaboration and gamification is followed to foster the engagement of citizens in Energy Communities and to understand their energy usage behaviour. And technologies to facilitate and automate the interaction with third parties in the energy value chain are being developed to facilitate the participation in energy/flexibility markets. The following objectives have been defined to reach the RESCHOOL purpose (S: Socioeconimic, T: Tchnical, V: Validation):
Obj 1 (S). To define, implement and validate a set of intergenerational training, transfers and engagement programmes for the dynamisation (creation, awareness, participation, management) of local energy communities.
Obj 2 (S). To increase the individual awareness and responsiveness of energy uses at household and community level through gamification strategies.
Obj 3: (T) Design of an interoperable architecture supported by a data model for the management of energy communities with aggregated interaction with flexibility markets.
Obj 4 (T): To develop a suite of services to support energy management and trading in energy communities, ready for integration and interoperation with third party solutions. To provide an open collaborative solution with access to individual and aggregated energy data and capabilities to interact with legacy systems and third party solutions in a secure and safe way.
Obj5 (V). To validate a complete solution for the management of energy communities ready to operate with both, flexibility markets and behind the meter (legacy) systems.
Results and lessons learned from validation will be compiled in a blueprint for the creation, development and sustainable management of energy communities including flexibility services. And the project aims to compilate guidelines and recommendations for the further replicability and exploitation of the developed tools and citizen engagement strategies.
Obj 1 (S). To define, implement and validate a set of intergenerational training, transfers and engagement programmes for the dynamisation (creation, awareness, participation, management) of local energy communities.
Obj 2 (S). To increase the individual awareness and responsiveness of energy uses at household and community level through gamification strategies.
Obj 3: (T) Design of an interoperable architecture supported by a data model for the management of energy communities with aggregated interaction with flexibility markets.
Obj 4 (T): To develop a suite of services to support energy management and trading in energy communities, ready for integration and interoperation with third party solutions. To provide an open collaborative solution with access to individual and aggregated energy data and capabilities to interact with legacy systems and third party solutions in a secure and safe way.
Obj5 (V). To validate a complete solution for the management of energy communities ready to operate with both, flexibility markets and behind the meter (legacy) systems.
Results and lessons learned from validation will be compiled in a blueprint for the creation, development and sustainable management of energy communities including flexibility services. And the project aims to compilate guidelines and recommendations for the further replicability and exploitation of the developed tools and citizen engagement strategies.
Main achievements by end of reporting period include:
1) Several campaigns applying the intergenerational learning proposal with schools in pilots.
2) Revised EU energy-community card deck completed, distributed to partners, and proposed as complementary training material; digital version on RESCHOOL website.
3) Gamification app with missions/rewards completed; integrating with energy management platforms in pilots for household energy data.
4) Open-source Community Energy Management System (CEMS) deployed in Amsterdam & Girona; adoption in Greek pilot underway. Enhanced with “Our grid” for voluntary congestion management participation.
5) Flexibility management/aggregation platform adapted for energy communities; fully integrated in Girona to manage flexible assets by market criteria.
6) Collaborative platform by Locallife fully operable in Swedish pilot with 6 building associations.
7) Integration with legacy systems at pilot sites (e.g. Datadis, Sentinel in Girona; Bricks in Stockholm) plus deployment of specific metering hardware (dongles, real-time meters, HEMs, BESS).
8) Improved forecasting/optimisation algorithms for secure, robust operation.
9) First validation iteration completed Feb 2025, focused on integration and first KPI set.
1) Several campaigns applying the intergenerational learning proposal with schools in pilots.
2) Revised EU energy-community card deck completed, distributed to partners, and proposed as complementary training material; digital version on RESCHOOL website.
3) Gamification app with missions/rewards completed; integrating with energy management platforms in pilots for household energy data.
4) Open-source Community Energy Management System (CEMS) deployed in Amsterdam & Girona; adoption in Greek pilot underway. Enhanced with “Our grid” for voluntary congestion management participation.
5) Flexibility management/aggregation platform adapted for energy communities; fully integrated in Girona to manage flexible assets by market criteria.
6) Collaborative platform by Locallife fully operable in Swedish pilot with 6 building associations.
7) Integration with legacy systems at pilot sites (e.g. Datadis, Sentinel in Girona; Bricks in Stockholm) plus deployment of specific metering hardware (dongles, real-time meters, HEMs, BESS).
8) Improved forecasting/optimisation algorithms for secure, robust operation.
9) First validation iteration completed Feb 2025, focused on integration and first KPI set.
The RESCHOOL architecture has not a specific platform (implementation) associated; but aims to integrate existing solutions with new developments in different implementations. Thus, the solutions being deployed in the four pilots will be different and adapted to local requirements and to the existence of legacy systems. RESCHOOL, delivers a specific open-source Community Energy Management system (CEMS), supported by Open Remote, that can be used as a core platform for energy management (already deployed in the Dutch, Spanish and Greek pilots). This is complemented with a proprietary aggregation platform capable to manage flexibility offered by Bamboo energy (being integrated in the Spanish pilot). Collaborative actions will be supported by the LocalLife platform currently deployed and being adapted in the Swedish pilot offering extended capabilities for energy certification and management. Aiming to increase engagement, and awareness, RESCHOOL has developed different initiatives. Thus, a pedagogical proposal for long term engagement has been designed as a tool to support intergenerational learning focusing on schools (primary and secondary) as a knowledge generation and transmission spot towards families and elder people. A second approach for engagement is serios gaming. Two strategies are envisioned with different implementations: on one hand a card deck representing energy communities and their values has been prototyped to perform interactive activities with citizens. The objective is to spread benefits of energy communities with different collectives (more than 30 energy communities, including RESCHOOL ones, have been mapped in the cards). The second approach aims to incentivize energy community members for a more responsible and efficient energy behaviour. In that case an App with access to the energy data, will guide the consumer towards more efficient energy behaviour at both individual and community level.