Author: ISOCARP Institute

An Energy Community is a legal entity where citizens, SMEs and local authorities come together, as final users of energy, to cooperate in the generation, consumption distribution, storage, supply, aggregation of energy from renewable sources, or offer energy efficiency/demand side management services. (Source: https://www.rescoop.eu/definitions)

Energy sharing involves a ‘local grid balancing tool’, a software that simulates energy load/ flow in the local grid, and allows energy generation sharing and acceptable operation of a local grid.

e-Mobility-as-a-Service (eMaaS) is similar to MaaS (Mobility-as-a-Service), with focus on sustainable mobility services using electric vehicles, e-bikes, and other eco-friendly modes of mobility.

An e-mobility platform is a group of technologies that provide an environment where applications and services can be built and used to facilitate access to nearby transport options. Users could be enabled to locate, evaluate, and select transport modes, and eventually book and pay for a journey.

In the +CityxChange project, a DPEB Innovation Lab is a dedicated center for digital innovation within a city. Data and visualisation tools including the +CityxChange Decision Support Tool (DST) are available to stakeholders using the DPEB Innovation Lab – citizens, business, academia and government agencies – to support competition and innovation to progress the creation of DPEBs.

In the +CityxChange Project, an Integrated Modelling and Decision Support Tool (DST) analyses energy use at building level; power and transmission of electricity across the electricity network; power required for the e-mobility network and socio-economic factors. Trained users of the DST can analyse scenarios for intervention e.g. energy efficiency upgrades of buildings or installation of renewable energy systems, to understand the impact of these scenarios on carbon and energy reduction targets and on socio-economic factors e.g. health or job growth. The DST is to be used by trained personnel within the municipality to inform development of the Bold City Vision and expansion of the PEB.

A Community Grid is a local electrical grid owned collaboratively by local consumers and prosumers, allowing them to trade energy between themselves.

The Citizen Participation Playbook is a catalog of practices to empower communities to contribute to the Positive Energy transition. It describes participatory processes in detail for adaptation to local contexts.

+CityxChange (Positive City Exchange) is a Horizon 2020 research and innovation smart city project, where cities experiment to integrate smart positive energy solutions. Through the use of digital services, the quality of life for and together with the citizens shall be improved, more energy produced than consumed, and experiences with cities across Europe exchanged to learn faster together.

A Citizen Energy Community (CEC) is a voluntary legal not-for-profit entity established at a local level for the purpose of energy “generation,… distribution, supply, consumption, aggregation, storage”, etc. (according to the EU Directive 2019_944, on common rules for the internal market for electricity).