The Educational Kit offers a clear introduction to the concepts, technologies, and real-world practices that enable smart and flexible energy management.

DEDALUS has released its new Educational Kit, a concise yet comprehensive resource designed for students, researchers, and professionals working on residential energy flexibility and user-centred demand response. The kit is available for download on the DEDALUS website.

Developed by Università Politecnica delle Marche, NTUA, CARTIF, and ICONS, the Kit introduces the fundamentals of residential demand response and explains why buildings—responsible for around 40% of Europe’s total energy consumption—play a pivotal role in the

The resource presents the project’s three core services:

• Energy Flexibility Tool (FLEXiT), which forecasts consumption, disaggregates loads, and quantifies flexibility potential

• Comfort Flexibility Service, enabling personalised comfort management during DR events through environmental sensing and machine-learning models

• District-Level Energy Management System, coordinating shared photovoltaics, batteries, and electric vehicle charging to optimise community-level self-consumption

To ground these concepts in real contexts, the Kit includes examples from three DEDALUS pilot sites (Austria, Italy, Greece), illustrating how technical, behavioural, and community-oriented approaches converge in practice. An annex provides an overview of previous EU projects that established the foundations for DEDALUS’ work.

Designed as both an introductory guide and a practical learning tool, the educational kit equips readers to understand—and contribute to—the future of smart, flexible, and inclusive energy systems.

“Educating students on demand response and energy saving is not only about technology—it’s about people, said Gian Marco Revel and Sara Casaccia, who coordinated the academic contribution to the Kit at Università Politecnica delle Marche. “With this kit, we hope to inspire future engineers, researchers, developers, and designers to create digital and innovative solutions that respect both human comfort and our planet’s resources”.

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This workshop will offer an in-depth preview of DEDALUS’ newly released educational kit on residential flexibility and human-centred energy management.

DEDALUS is hosting an online workshop, titled “The Ins and Outs of Demand Response and Smart Living: Unpacking the DEDALUS Educational Kit”, a practical resource that helps students, educators, and professionals understand residential energy flexibility and its growing role in the energy transition.
The workshop will take place on Thursday, 4 December 2025, at 15:00 CET. Participants can register at this link.

The educational kit explains how homes and communities can contribute to grid stability through more flexible energy consumption. It brings together behavioural insights, digital technologies, and innovative management models, offering a multidisciplinary perspective on human-centred demand-side management.

Core themes featured in the workshop

The session will highlight the three key DEDALUS services that form the technical backbone of the educational kit:

• Energy flexibility tool, which uses advanced forecasting techniques and load-disaggregation models to estimate consumption, production, and flexibility potential at both building and community levels;
• Comfort flexibility service, integrating environmental data, IoT sensors, and human comfort preferences to balance well-being and energy efficiency during flexibility events;
• District-level energy management system, coordinating shared photovoltaic assets, battery storage, and electric vehicle charging to optimise renewable use and reduce energy costs in residential communities.

These components will be illustrated through real-world examples from the DEDALUS pilots in Italy, Austria, Greece, and Denmark, allowing participants to observe how different energy flexibility strategies are applied across various residential contexts.

Workshop Agenda (All times are in CET)

15:00 – 15:10
Welcome & introduction to the DEDALUS project – Diego Arnone (Engineering S.p.A.)

15:10 – 15:20
Presentation of the educational kit – Ilaria Orfino (Fondazione ICONS)

15:20 – 15:45
Technical insights featured in the educational kit
• Energy Flexibility Tool — Giannis Papias (NTUA)
• Comfort Flexibility Service — Richard Kaculi (Università Politecnica delle Marche)
• District-level Energy Management System — Bianca Viviana Martínez (CARTIF)

15:45 – 16:15
Roundtable with pilot leaders – Moderator: Alessandro Rossi, Engineering
• Italian Pilot — Gloria Corazza, ISSRA
• Austrian Pilot — Hemma Bieser, GreenPoint
• Danish Pilot — Thomas Lyngvad, FAELLESBO

16:15 – 16:25
Q&A session

16:25 – 16:30
Wrap-up and conclusions

A contribution to education and capacity building

With the release of its educational kit, DEDALUS provides educators and practitioners with a comprehensive, ready-to-use set of materials that translate the project’s integrated approach — technological, behavioural, and community-driven — into accessible learning content. The workshop will be the first opportunity to explore how these resources can be integrated into academic courses, training programmes, or community initiatives focused on energy transition and user engagement.

(Photo credits: Federico Beccari on Unsplash)

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DEDALUS, together with SMARTeeSTORY, MetaBuild, ReSCHOOL, Enpower, and CRETE VALLEY, will take part in a Smart Energy Cluster workshop at Enlit Europe 2025, showcasing integrated innovations from smart buildings to energy communities.

The DEDALUS project will take part in the Bilbao event as a member of the Smart Energy Cluster together with SMARTeeSTORY, ReSCHOOL, Enpower, MetaBuild and Crete Valley. Each of these projects operates across different parts of the energy value chain, showcasing how Europe’s energy transition can be accelerated by combining building-level solutions with community-driven energy models and smart grid integration.

Operating across different segments of the energy value chain, these projects demonstrate how coordinated innovation can accelerate Europe’s clean-energy transition by combining digital tools, demand-response solutions, community-led models, and smart grid integration. By presenting as a unified group at Enlit Europe 2025, the projects highlight how joint approaches can overcome regulatory, technical, and behavioural challenges and support the deployment of accessible and scalable energy solutions across Europe.

About the workshop

Titled “From Buildings to Communities: Innovation in Energy Efficiency and Grid Integration“, the workshop aims to bring together the diverse innovations and solutions developed across these projects to explore how they can collectively accelerate the energy transition. Through two dedicated sessions, the event will highlight emerging strategies for smart building renovation, energy efficiency, flexibility management, and citizen engagement in local energy markets.

Participants will have the opportunity to engage in discussions on how digitalisation, advanced data integration, and innovative business models are reshaping the way energy is managed within buildings and communities. By fostering knowledge exchange and collaboration, the workshop aims to create a platform for stakeholders to explore how Europe can better integrate technology, finance, and community-driven initiatives to meet its ambitious climate and energy objectives.

Agenda

• 11:30 – 11:35: Overview of the Smart Energy Cluster – Vasilis Kotrogiannis (NTUA)
• 11:35 – 12:15 — Session 1 “Smart Buildings: Digital Innovation for Energy Retrofits”
  Topics: Integration of IoT, digital twins, energy-efficiency financing, heritage-sensitive solutions, decarbonisation services
• 11:35 – 11:40 SMARTeeSTORY: Smart Control Systems and Energy Optimisation for Historic Non-Residential Buildings – Matteo Porta (RINA-C)
• 11:40 – 11:45 META BUILD: Electrification technologies and novel digital applications towards buildings’ decarbonisation – Nikos Dimitropoulos (NTUA)
• 11:45 – 11:55 DEDALUS: Residential demand response for innovative services with social engagement – Diego Arnone (ENG)
• 11:55 – 12:15 Panel discussion Session 1 – moderated by Elissaios Sarmas (NTUA)

For further information and to register for the conference, click here.

(Photo Credits: ENLIT website)

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The key takeaways from the "human-in-the-loop" workshop held at Sustainable Places 2025 are now available. They draw on the insights of four EU-funded projects – DEDALUS, CRETE VALLEY, EnerTEF, and ENPOWER.

Digitalisation can only be truly transformative when it keeps humans at its core.

This was the guiding principle behind the workshop “Human-in-the-loop digitalisation for Europe’s energy transition”, organised by Fondazione ICONS – as leader of the DEDALUS dissemination and communication – under the umbrella of the Smart Energy Cluster during Sustainable Places 2025.

The workshop’s main messages are captured in the document “Human-in-the-loop in the Frame of the Energy Transition – Key Takeaways”.

The session brought together DEDALUS and three other EU-funded projects — CRETE VALLEY, EnerTEF, and ENPOWER — to explore how to move beyond the rhetorical use of the term human-in-the-loop and translate it into concrete, people-centred methodologies supporting Europe’s green and digital transitions.

Through an open and multidisciplinary exchange, participants discussed the barriers and enablers shaping the scalability of human-centred digitalisation, highlighting the crucial role of Social Sciences and Humanities, co-creation processes, and trust-building as prerequisites for social acceptance and long-term behavioural change.

Key insights include:

• Moving from concept to implementation by embedding user engagement and co-design from the very start.
• Recognising co-creation and SSH as the foundations of genuine human-centred innovation.
• Shifting from purely financial to social and intrinsic motivations, such as belonging and trust.
• Addressing the “language divide” between technical and social domains.
• Scaling human-in-the-loop approaches from buildings to communities.

The workshop’s conclusions call for a paradigm shift: digitalisation must empower people, not replace them.

Achieving this vision requires continuous collaboration between research, industry, policymakers, and citizens — ensuring that Europe’s energy transition is not only smart but also inclusive, just, and profoundly human.

(Photo Credits: Fondazione ICONS)

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Organized by ICONS, a partner of DEDALUS, the session highlights replicability and upscaling as key drivers for moving from pilot projects to large-scale market deployment, alongside SUPERSHINE, InEEXs, RENplusHOMES, and SIRCULAR.

The European project DEDALUS will take part in the workshop “From Demonstration to Deployment: Bridging the gap to market uptake”, organised by ICONS as part of Sustainable Places 2025, which will take place in Milan (Italy) from 8 to 10 October 2025.

The session addresses a critical challenge faced by many EU-funded projects: ensuring that innovative solutions tested under pilot or demonstration conditions can be successfully replicated and scaled up, delivering tangible and long-lasting impact beyond the boundaries of a single project. The workshop will therefore explore how to transition from experimentation to real deployment, considering not only technological readiness but also the socio-economic, regulatory, and community dimensions that shape the adoption of innovation.

DEDALUS will share its experience in testing and validating innovative models and technologies in the field of social and collaborative housing, with a strong focus on replicability strategies and on the conditions that enable upscaling across different contexts. The project is exploring how digitalisation, community engagement, and sustainable business models can accelerate the transition from local pilot initiatives to widespread adoption across Europe.

Alongside DEDALUS, other EU projects – SUPERSHINE, InEEXs, RENplusHOMES, and SIRCULAR – will present their own perspectives, challenges, and lessons learned.

Together, they will provide a comprehensive overview of the opportunities and bottlenecks that characterise the path from demonstration to deployment.

For DEDALUS, this participation is both a recognition of the project’s commitment to ensuring the transferability of its results and a valuable opportunity for cross-fertilisation with other initiatives at European level.

The session will take place on Thursday, 9 October 2025, at 4 PM (CEST) in Room 7 at Monterosa 91, Milan.

Find more about our session: Demonstration to deployment – Sustainable Places (SP)

To register to Sustainable Places 2025, click here.

About Sustainable Places
Sustainable Places is Europe’s leading conference on energy transition and sustainability. It brings together researchers, industry leaders, and policy makers to accelerate innovation and promote a resilient, low-carbon future.

(Image by wal_172619 from Pixabay)

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During its sixth General Assembly, DEDALUS confirmed that 19 energy management technologies have reached TRL 6–7, paving the way for more efficient, user-centred and scalable demand response solutions in residential buildings.

The DEDALUS project has pushed up the technology readiness levels (TRLs) of 19 energy management technologies as it approaches the end of its endeavours to enhance demand response in seven pilot pilots.

This progress was reviewed during the project’s latest General Assembly last September, where partners took stock of the technologies’ development and deployment status across the pilot sites. These technologies, which include smart-device interoperability solutions, the DEDALUS ontology, the FLEXiT flexibility assessment tool, digital twins, blockchain-based settlement mechanisms, and privacy-preserving data exchange frameworks, have now reached TRLs between 6 and 7. This means they have been tested and demonstrated in relevant operational environments, moving beyond the development phase and toward real-world deployment.

Their advancement enables more efficient and responsive energy management in residential buildings, supporting users and service providers in optimising energy consumption, increasing flexibility, and contributing to more stable and resilient energy systems.

The General Assembly also provided an opportunity to review progress across the project’s pilot activities in Austria, Denmark, Greece, Italy, Spain and Romania, where the technologies are being validated under diverse technical and social conditions. These real-life environments allow partners to assess not only technical performance, but also usability, user acceptance and integration into existing energy practices.

Alongside technological development, in the last few months, the project has actively engaged end users and stakeholders. More than 150 users have participated in technical workshops, and over 10 different actor types are already involved in testing and shaping the services. This engagement is key to ensuring that the solutions developed respond to real needs and can be effectively adopted beyond the project.

As DEDALUS enters its final phase, the focus will shift towards consolidating these results through wider operation, further onboarding activities and post-test evaluation. The objective is to provide robust evidence on how advanced energy management technologies can support scalable, user-centred demand response solutions across Europe.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

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Featuring the DEDALUS project as a panelist, the session explores how advanced digital technologies, citizen engagement and innovation ecosystems can enable an inclusive and scalable energy transition.

At Sustainable Places 2025, a major annual conference on energy transition and sustainable built environments, the Smart Energy Cluster will host a workshop entitled “Human-in-the-loop digitalisation for Europe’s energy transition: From co-design in communities to scalable innovation ecosystems”.

[Update: the key takeaways of this workshop are now available at this link].

The workshop will explore how digitalisation of the energy sector, through artificial intelligence, digital twins, blockchain, and data platforms, must evolve beyond pure technology. Active participation, trust, and community-driven governance are key to ensuring that solutions are viable in real contexts and replicable across Europe. A roundtable discussion will highlight human-in-the-loop digitalisation as a multi-level process, empowering citizens and consumers through co-design and participatory governance. This empowerment will ensure interoperability and flexibility across carriers and sectors, and build robust innovation ecosystems that connect SMEs, startups, communities, and industry players.

Four EU projects, as a part of the Smart Energy Cluster, will share their approaches: Crete Valley , developing Renewable Energy Valleys that integrate solar, hydrogen, biogas and district heating with active involvement of local communities; DEDALUS , combining digital tools and behavioural insights to foster adoption of demand-response; EnerTEF , a federated test facility linking SMEs and start-ups with industry to validate and scale AI-based services; and ENPOWER, equipping communities with digital instruments for energy planning and flexibility markets.

By connecting these experiences, the workshop – moderated by Chiara Fonio, Head of Social Innovation at Fondazione ICONS – will show how Europe can build resilient ecosystems where innovation meets legitimacy, and where technological progress translates into tangible impact for people and territories.

The Agenda

11-11:05: Opening
Introduction by the moderator, outlining the objectives of the session and presenting the speakers.

11:05-11:45: Project lightning talks
A series of concise presentations showcasing how European research projects are putting the human factor at the core of smart energy innovation.

11:45-12:05: Focused panel exchange
A short dialogue between the moderator and the speakers, highlighting key insights and setting the stage for audience interaction.

12:05-12:20: Interactive breakout discussions
Participants join small groups to discuss shared questions on bridging social and technical aspects, governance and acceptance, and the scalability of human-centric approaches.

12:20-12:30:  Closing wrap-up
Final remarks by the moderator and speakers, summarising the main takeaways from the session.

The session will take place on Thursday, 9 October 2025, at 11 AM (CEST) in Room 7 at Monterosa 91, Milan.

Find more about our session here.  To register, here is available the link.

(Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay)

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At MetroLivEnv 2025, DEDALUS presented innovative approaches to digital services in the built environment — from smart energy management and predictive modeling to cloud-edge orchestration.

DEDALUS took part in the MetroLivEnv Conference, held in Venice Mestre this summer, bringing its scientific and technological contribution to two special sessions dedicated to the “Application of Digital Services in the Built Environment: Empowering Innovation through High-Quality Data-Driven Measurement Processes to Enhance Demand Response Strategies”.

Coordinated by DEDALUS partners Engineering and Università Politecnica delle Marche, the sessions gathered experts from academia, research, and industry to explore the role of digital services and high-quality data in transforming the built environment. In particular, delegates discussed the development of new demand response strategies, key tools for the intelligent and efficient management of energy resources.

The DEDALUS consortium presented results and innovative approaches in three main areas:

• Optimisation of energy consumption in multi-family buildings, enabling residents’ active participation in Demand Response programmes.
• Integration of predictive market models with automated management of residential heat pumps, fostering more sustainable household energy use.
• Advanced orchestration of workloads across the Cloud-Edge continuum, enhancing the resilience and efficiency of digital infrastructures.

These contributions highlighted how DEDALUS not only promotes the use of digital technologies and advanced measurement systems, but also works to transform buildings into active nodes of the energy network, capable of dynamically responding to market needs.

Beyond DEDALUS’s participation, MetroLivEnv 2025 provided a comprehensive overview of current environmental and technological challenges that engage academia, industry, and policymakers.

Among the most relevant themes featured the development of new environmental monitoring methodologies, with a focus on air and water quality in urban and industrial contexts. Advanced sensor technologies were showcased, which are becoming increasingly miniaturized and integrated with digital platforms, capable of delivering real-time, high-resolution data.

Another key topic was the exploration of measurement technologies for indoor well-being, essential to assess building health and living comfort. Experts stressed how the combination of intelligent sensors, predictive algorithms and cloud platforms enables a more accurate assessment of the impact of technological innovations on people’s health and quality of life.

Several contributions exemplified this research effort, including:

• A study on the optimisation of household appliance use in residential buildings to facilitate participation in Demand Response programmes (Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania);
• A research on the integration of predictive market models with automated management of residential heat pumps, developed by Zenith Gas & Light SA in collaboration with the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA);
• An analysis of the potential of the cloud-edge continuum for the orchestration of containerised workloads, with applications in the energy and industrial sectors;
• A personalized approach to ensure the well-being of vulnerable people during Demand Response events (Università Politecnica delle Marche, Italy).
• A study presenting a methodology for optimizing the distribution of electrical energy generated and stored within renewable energy communities located in the same district (CIMNE)

The conference further underscored the importance of interdisciplinary approaches, combining engineering, environmental sciences and social sciences. The shared goal is to design integrated tools to support policy-makers and private stakeholders in managing cities, providing reliable data and predictive scenarios for more effective sustainability and urban resilience strategies.

(This project update was co-authored by Università Politecnica delle Marche and Fondazione ICONS)

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The project has contributed to two BRIDGE Initiative reports supporting regulatory innovation in energy system integration and citizen-driven energy sharing.

From the outset, DEDALUS has been an active contributor to the regulatory working group of the BRIDGE initiative, led by the European Commission, providing inputs on two key dimensions of the energy transition:

• the integration of energy sectors (electricity, heating, mobility, smart buildings),
• the development of frameworks for energy sharing among citizens, communities and territories, including peer-to-peer trading.

Through its experimental and research activities, DEDALUS has offered its insights on:

• the interaction between electric and thermal systems,
• the deployment of digital, decentralised solutions at household level,
• the identification of persistent regulatory barriers (fragmented rules, limited data access, lack of tailored incentives),
• the promotion of participatory governance models to support energy management at the local scale.

DEDALUS has also taken part in the European conversation on energy sharing, contributing to the analysis of national legal frameworks and highlighting good practices and gaps across Member States. These efforts aim to foster a more equitable, interoperable and citizen-centric energy system across Europe.

The BRIDGE reports: project-based evidence to inform EU policymaking

DEDALUS’ activities and contributions have been included in two official reports published in July 2025 by the BRIDGE Regulation Working Group. These reports consolidate the experiences of over 30 Horizon Europe and H2020 projects and offer strategic guidance to EU and national institutions working to align policy frameworks with the goals of the European Green Deal.

Below the links for download of the two reports:

• Supporting Potential Synergies from Increased Sector Coupling, Sector Integration and System Integration 
• Report on Energy Sharing 

Image by Joe from Pixabay

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As part of the Smart Energy Cluster session, DEDALUS will highlight how its people-centred approach to demand response is helping make the energy transition more inclusive and effective.

DEDALUS will take part in the Smart Energy Cluster session of the 5th International Workshop on AI & Data Analytics in the Energy Sector, scheduled for 11 July 2025,  in Mytilene, Greece, as part of the 16th International Conference on Information, Intelligence, Systems and Applications (IISA 2025).

Titled “Advancing the Energy Transition with Smart Infrastructure and Engaged Communities“, the session brings together six EU-funded projects—ENPOWER, InEExS, DEDALUS, ENERGATE, HEDGE-IoT, and i-STENTORE—that are developing innovative solutions for a more sustainable, flexible, and inclusive European energy system.

DEDALUS, represented by Alessandro Rossi from Engineering,  will show its approach to flexible demand-side management in residential buildings, based on a carrier-agnostic model that integrates socially informed design, co-creation, and active user participation.

The project will contribute to the thematic session “Empowering Communities for a Smarter Energy Future”, focusing on participatory models, energy communities, and digital demand-side services.

The session will provide an overview of emerging technologies and engagement strategies that are accelerating the energy transition in Europe, with a specific focus on regulatory, infrastructural, and behavioural challenges.

Foto di Yusuf Onuk su Unsplash

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