Fostering Energy Communities by driving innovation in Energy Management

The EU project STUNNED advances the role of Energy Communities by driving innovation in Energy Management and Flexibility Services. 18 partners from seven countries met in Genova, Italy to kick-off their 3.5-year project

The 18 European partners of STUNNED met in Genova, Italy, from November 27th – 28th, 2024, to kick-off their Horizon Europe-funded 3.5-year project. The meeting provided a platform for the consortium to introduce themselves, discuss targets, and outline a roadmap for the successful execution of the project. As one of the project partners, Steinbeis Europa Zentrum is responsible for communication and dissemination activities.

STUNNED aims to reduce the energy consumption of residential and industrial buildings. Therefore, these buildings and their users are brought together to form Energy Communities, which use renewable energies to balance energy supply and demand, ensure a stable and reliable electricity grid and consequently play a more active role in the energy market.

Energy communities and smart connected buildings and districts are becoming increasingly important as they enable energy consumers not only to produce but also manage their own energy. This includes the provision of flexibility services such as peak shaving or load shifting, which are crucial to make the local electricity grid more flexible and to neutralize phases of high and low demand.

STUNNED intends to make an important contribution to achieving the EU climate targets at both local and EU level by focusing on the development and demonstration of a hardware and software solution that can be used to bring together the energy management systems of the individual players in energy communities and thus optimally coordinate energy production and use as well as flexibility services.

“For best results, STUNNED demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed hardware and software solutions in real-life demonstration sites located in three different European countries. Our aim is to gather and share lessons learnt in order to facilitate and enable energy communities across Europe and beyond,” says Matteo Porta, RINA-C, Project Scientific Coordinator and Heidi Percuoco, RINA-C, Project Coordinator.

STUNNED actively fosters knowledge exchange and the sharing of best practices among stakeholders, such as building owners, energy service companies, and public authorities. To do so, the project will organise workshops, site visits, training sessions, and networking events to foster collaboration and knowledge sharing among related initiatives and projects, as well as with external audiences.

The STUNNED consortium consists of the 18 following members from seven countries:

Rina Consulting Spa, Italy
Universidad de la Iglesia de Deusto, Spain
Elliot Cloud Si; Spain
Institute Mihajlo Pupin, Serbia
Commissariat à l’energie atomique et aux Energies Alternatives, France
R2m Solution Srl, Italy
Energy Pool Developpement Sas, France
Steinbeis Europa Zentrum (Steinbeis Innovation gGmbH), Germany
Watt, France
Engreen Srl, Italy
My Energia Oner Si, Spain
Arcelik A.S., Turkey
Centro de Investigacao em Energia, Portugal
Cuerva Energia Slu, Spain
New Concisa, S.I., Spain
Norbalat S.R.L., Italy
Chiarappa Investimenti S.R.L., Italy
Lofano Srl, Italy