Energy communities are considered to be at the heart of a climate-neutral energy future, in Austria as well as elsewhere. However, many face similar challenges, such as tight economic margins, untapped potential for self-consumption, and insufficient involvement of households and businesses. A new European initiative aims to address precisely these issues by providing digital tools to make energy community operations more efficient, flexible, and economically viable.

From analysis to toolbox

The EU project RENvolveIT held workshops with 45 representatives from across Europe, collecting a total of 240 specific requirements ranging from precise generation and consumption monitoring to member management and fair energy distribution. More than 30 detailed user profiles (‘user personas’) demonstrate the diversity of needs, ranging from urban solar initiatives to regional communities comprising several municipalities.

The solution will be a modular software toolbox. Each community can select the tools they need. Tools for optimizing consumption, integrating various generation plants, and providing a central registration system are already in development.

Austria as a pioneer – and testing ground

In Austria, energy communities come in all shapes and sizes, ranging from multi-unit buildings with shared solar installations to regional renewable energy communities comprising several hundred participants. Despite the favorable legal situation, low margins on self-consumption are hindering growth. The greatest opportunity lies in better coordinating generation and consumption, as well as integrating additional consumers from the private and commercial sectors. Austrian partners contribute practical expertise in this area as operators, managers, and supporters of communities in urban and rural areas and are significantly involved in the planned pilot project.

Salzburg Research is contributing the Community Aggregation Tool (CAT) to the project. This tool allows energy communities to track their collective energy balance clearly and in real time. As part of the project, the CAT will be developed further and adapted to meet the specific technical and regulatory requirements of various European countries.

Diversity as a driver of innovation

The RENvolveIT consortium brings together technology, economics, law, and social science experts from more than ten countries, ranging from the Czech Republic to Brazil to Kenya. This diversity is seen as an advantage when it comes to developing a toolbox that can be adapted to a wide variety of conditions throughout Europe.

More about the projekt: RENvolveIT – Regional Energy Networking: cross-sectional involvement through a modular interactive toolbox