Stakeholder and end-user needs analysis
Knowledge Base
Knowledge base aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the key challenges that Local Energy Communities (LECs) face across technical, regulatory, socio-organizational, and financial domains. It presents a systematic literature review drawing on 586 scientific articles, project deliverables, eight expert interviews, and additional manually selected sources. Thematic analysis of these sources identifies the multifaceted barriers to the successful development, implementation, and operation of LECs.
Stakeholder and End-User Needs
Stakeholder and End-User Needs Assessment Report presents the results of a stakeholder mapping exercise and an assessment of pilot-specific needs, building on the challenges identified in Knowledge Base. The report provides a structured overview of the main hurdles currently faced, or likely to be faced, by the ACCU pilots, and formulates targeted recommendations to support their further development.
Technical aspects of LECs
Technical analysis
This report establishes the foundational technical framework for the ACCU pilots. It provides a comprehensive description of the three pilot sites, each featuring distinct configurations of renewable technologies including PV, PVT, heat pumps, and concrete-based thermal storage. A standardized set of Key Performance Indicators is introduced to quantify technical performance across the pilots.
Implementation guide
The implementation guide translates the technical framework and Key Performance Indicators into concrete system configurations, integration strategies, and technical criteria and associated scoring rules. The guide focuses on the practical implementation of photovoltaic (PV), photovoltaic–thermal (PVT), heat pump, and thermal storage technologies within a Local Energy Community, with particular attention to multi-energy coupling, temperature constraints, and local infrastructure compatibility.
Energy Management System Analysis Report
The analysis report provides a clear overview of the asset types within ACCU pilot sites and how they integrate into an open-source Energy Management System (EMS). It includes a detailed gap analysis comparing current EMS capabilities with the technical, operational and user-focused requirements of the pilots. By mapping optimisation, installation, monitoring and end-user needs, the report highlights what must be improved to deliver a smarter, more responsive community EMS. Explore how these insights guide the next steps towards a robust, future-ready energy management solution.
Energy Management System Optimisation Report
This report is about defining and realising new optimisation requirements for the open-source EMS for Local Energy Communities including support for heat storage, electric heat pumps, advanced forecasting, dynamic tariffs and capacity limits, energy sharing, and human behaviour incentives.
Energy Management System Integration Report
Find out the identified gaps for installation, maintenance, and KPI support in the open-source EMS, leading to new requirements for system integrators.
Energy Management System Procurement Guide
Local energy communities are shifting from asset-centric static system designs to flexibility-driven optimisation, increasing the importance of an EMS. Growing system complexity makes structured EMS procurement essential, especially when assets evolve separately over time. This procurement and implementation guideline defines requirement categories covering functional, technical, performance, legal, and commercial aspects.
Regulatory aspects of LECs
Comparative analysis of regulatory context for LEC
This analysis examines how Belgium (Flanders), France and the Netherlands translate EU energy directives supporting LECs into national frameworks. The document highlights the legal opportunities and challenges created by the Clean Energy Package, shedding light on how Member States enable or hinder community energy ownership. By comparing regulatory progress, gaps and ambiguities, the report clarifies what is needed for LECs to thrive in complex national contexts. Discover how policy landscapes shape the future of community-driven renewable energy in three pilot countries.
Guide for adapting regulation for LEC implementation
This guide provides an overview of the legal steps that the LECs must take and the issues that they must solve at each step of their implementation cycle. We also identified the issues that could be solved collectively with future participants.
Social & organisational aspects of LECs
Making LECs operational
This document establishes an ACCU-specific definition of energy communities and operationalizes them through key performance indicators to guide pilot activities. The working definition serves as an ‘umbrella concept’ that is broad enough for all ACCU pilots to relate to, while being specific enough to provide practical guidance for their implementation.
Implementation guide for socio-organizational aspects
LECs’ success depends on intentional community building and engagement. This guide provides procedural steps and recommendations for pilots to establish and strengthen LECs across seven key phases of their implementation
Financial aspects of LECs
Analysis of business model practices
This deliverable explores what makes strong, future-proof business modes
for local energy communities and why these models must evolve alongside
changing technologies and regulations. The Report breaks down key
elements of successful business structures and examines how they support
communities from early engagement to full-scale operation. Real-world
examples and clear frameworks help illustrate what drives long-term
value, stability and impact. Discover how well-crafted business models
turn community energy ideas into lasting and scalable solutions.
Financial implementation guide
Financial Implementation Guide serves as a framework for ACCU pilots to prepare and strengthen their business models. It provides practical and adaptable tools that help the pilots to structure and test their own business models, to simulate financial scenarios using a simple calculation sheet, and make informed decisions balancing financial viability, citizen inclusion, and environmental goals.