This white paper, developed by the Smart Cities Marketplace Energy Management for Energy Communities Focus Group, explores the pivotal role of energy communities and smart grids in accelerating the transition to a decentralised, low‑carbon energy system in Europe. It provides a comprehensive overview of how integrated energy management systems, supported by advanced digital technologies, can enhance sustainability, resilience, and citizen participation in the energy transition.
The publication brings together contributions from experts in research, technology, energy services, municipalities, and industry from across Europe, and positions EMS as a core enabling technology for coordinating local renewable generation, storage, flexible demand, and market participation within energy communities.
Key findings
Energy communities can broaden access to the benefits of renewable energy. The paper argues that collective self-consumption models can help include renters, residents of multi-family buildings, and households that cannot deploy individual systems, while also supporting local consumption of local generation and reducing pressure on electricity networks.
EMS are presented as socio-technical systems, not standalone products. The analysis describes EMS as integrating sensing, communication, control, optimisation, forecasting, and decision-support functions to manage increasingly decentralised energy systems.
Smart meters, storage, EV integration, and demand response are identified as critical building blocks. The paper details how advanced metering infrastructure, battery energy storage systems, vehicle-to-grid capabilities, and both explicit and tariff-based demand-response schemes can improve flexibility and grid resilience.
Interoperability and standards matter. The white paper highlights frameworks such as SGAM and standard communication protocols as important for integrating community-level EMS with wider grid infrastructure and market systems.
Aggregation is becoming a key market interface. Drawing on recent EU electricity-market legislation, the paper describes the growing role of aggregators in pooling distributed resources, enabling flexibility services, and facilitating market participation for small-scale consumers and prosumers.
Policy and local-government implications
The white paper situates energy communities within the EU’s Clean Energy for All Europeans framework, including the Renewable Energy Directive and the Internal Electricity Market Directive. It reviews how national enabling frameworks, consumer-rights reforms, and funding initiatives are shaping deployment across member states.
It also emphasises the role of municipalities in permitting, infrastructure planning, public engagement, technical support, and inclusive participation, arguing that local authorities are often the bridge between EU policy objectives and on-the-ground implementation.
Recommendations
The paper calls on:
- policy makers and regulators to simplify administrative processes, improve data access, and strengthen interoperability requirements;
- municipalities to integrate energy communities into local energy planning and capacity-building efforts;
- energy-community developers to deploy robust, secure EMS architectures with high-quality data acquisition and advanced analytics;
- technology providers and aggregators to adopt open, standards-based approaches; and end users to be supported with transparent information and accessible participation mechanisms.
About the white paper
Title: Energy Communities and Smart Grids (white paper)
Scope: EMS, smart grids, self-consumption, demand response, data analytics, aggregation models, market participation, and EU policy frameworks for energy communities.