As DEDALUS comes to an end, its resources remain open and accessible to support the future of residential demand response in Europe.

After three years of research, development and real-life validation, the EU-funded DEDALUS project has concluded, leaving behind a set of tools, evidence and lessons learnt to support the future deployment of residential demand response in Europe.

Across seven pilot sites in Austria, Denmark, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Romania and Spain, DEDALUS tested human-centric and interoperable solutions in diverse residential contexts, including energy communities, social housing, student residences, district-scale environments and elderly living facilities.

Among its key achievements, DEDALUS:

• Validated residential demand response in real-life settings, showing how flexibility can be activated across different building types, user groups and local energy conditions.
• Developed and tested interoperable digital solutions, combining AI, IoT, blockchain, digital twins, smart heating control and user-facing services to support more flexible, efficient, and user-centred energy management.

The project’s results are now compiled into the DEDALUS Innovation Handbook, together with pilot and cross-cutting factsheets, policy outputs, reports, videos, and other legacy materials. All DEDALUS legacy materials are available for download at this link.

In line with the project’s commitment to open access, DEDALUS outputs are also available through Zenodo, ensuring that the knowledge generated remains accessible and reusable beyond the project’s formal end.  DEDALUS Zenodo Community is here.

(Photo Credits: iStock by Getty Images)

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A new DEDALUS resource developed by EnEA explores how better-designed incentives can support residential consumers’ participation in demand response programmes.

Developed by the partner EnEA under the DEDALUS project, the Toolkit for incentives scheme design looks at how financial and non-financial incentives can support the participation of residential consumers in demand response programmes. This resource examines the role of measures such as time-of-use pricing, rebates, social recognition, gamification, and community engagement in encouraging more active and sustained user involvement. The toolkit also highlights that effective incentive design depends on more than technology alone. Factors such as habits, comfort, trust, digital literacy, and motivation shape how people respond to demand response schemes, making it necessary to adopt approaches that are clearer, more accessible, and better aligned with different user profiles.

Further information about the toolkit can be found on the DEDALUS Resources page, where it is also available for download.

Image by Rudy and Peter Skitterians from Pixabay

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At the last DEDALUS General Assembly in La Seu d’Urgell, DEDALUS marked the transition to its final phase, with residential demand response solutions moving into real-life validation and demonstration.

During the General Assembly held in January in La Seu d’Urgell, DEDALUS partners reviewed progress across the project and discussed the next steps as the initiative moves towards its final phase. With work increasingly focused on validation and demonstration in real-life settings, the meeting marked a shift from technology development towards deployment, practical testing, and future uptake.

Across the consortium, partners confirmed the maturity of a wide range of solutions designed to make residential demand response more effective, data-driven, and relevant to real users and communities. Pilot activities are now playing a central role in assessing how these solutions perform in practice across different local contexts.

The discussions also pointed to a shared ambition across the project: to make smart energy solutions more usable, trustworthy, and better aligned with the realities of buildings, infrastructures, and user behaviour.

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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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European Green Cities, a partner in the DEDALUS project, is hosting a roundtable to explore how regulations can evolve to better support demand response. The discussion will focus on five key challenges currently hindering its development.

European Green Cities, as a partner of the DEDALUS project, is hosting a roundtable to tackle a key question: how should national and EU regulations evolve to truly enable the growth of Demand Response programmes?

The event will take place on  Tuesday 27 May 2025 from 9.30 AM to 12 PM (all times in CEST),and it will be open to the public.

With input from industry experts, scientific and technological partners of the project, and institutional representatives, the discussion will focus on five major challenges currently hindering the development of demand response:

• lack of effective incentives to engage key stakeholders;
• absence of a clear and consistent regulatory framework;
• interoperability issues across national infrastructure systems;
• entry barriers imposed by DSOs and TSOs;
• complexities in data management and privacy protection.

Confirmed speakers include:

• Thomas Kawam (Policy Officer – Internal Energy Market at DG ENER, European Commission)
• Andrei Vladimir Litiu (Executive Director, EPB Center and Next Gen EPC Cluster)
• Maria Capogreco (Chair of HWG, RHC-ETIP)
• Saska Petrova (Professor of Human Geography, Departmental Research Director, University of Manchester)
• Gusts Kossovics (Managing Director, EUBAC)
• Quentin Donnette (Head of Research and Projects, smartEn – Smart Energy Europe)
• Panos Skaloumpakas (Pilot site coordinator at the DEDALUS project, based at National Technical University of Athens / NTUA)
• Athanasios Papakonstantinou (Innovation Coordinator at the DEDALUS project, R&D Project Manager and Energy Management at HERON)

The roundtable will be moderated by Katerina Sianni (DEDALUS project partner; Data Scientist & Data Visualization Senior Expert at the Energy Policy Unit, NTUA).

Full agenda and access details are available on the European Green Cities website.

(Ph. Randy Fath on Unsplash)

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DEDALUS and DR-RISE are joining forces to tackle demand response challenges by facilitating knowledge transfer and enhancing the integration of distributed energy resources in European markets.

DEDALUS and DR-RISE have joined forces to tackle the challenges of demand response through knowledge transfer and joint dissemination activities. Both projects are dedicated to improving the integration of distributed energy resources and optimising demand-side management within European energy markets and therefore, both projects share numerous objectives and address common challenges.

DEDALUS and DR-RISE focuse on creating a demand response ecosystem for residential users by combining advanced ICT technologies with social, innovative business models inspired by the sharing economy and participatory governance. Both projects explore new ways of engaging residential users through participatory and multi-value approaches and conduct ongoing regulatory analysis to bridge legislative gaps and ensure greater accessibility to demand response solutions. Moreover, they aim to make energy demand more flexible and responsive, reducing peak consumption and enhancing grid performance and tackle current barriers like slow deployment of smart meters, the lack of a clear status for independent aggregators, and limited access to energy markets.

Another common challenge is ensuring consumer acceptance and active participation. Raising awareness and providing incentives to encourage engagement are crucial for optimising energy consumption.Securing the involvement of utilities and aggregators is also essential to facilitating the large-scale adoption of these solutions. However, challenges remain, such as the scalability of technologies, which must overcome both technological and regulatory obstacles to be widely applicable. Additionally, the diversity of energy systems across European countries requires increased standardisation to ensure interoperability.

Through their cooperation, DEDALUS and DR-RISE thus seek to maximise the impact of research and promote the adoption of innovative solutions in the demand response sector, contributing to a more efficient, resilient, and sustainable European energy system.

“DEDALUS and DR-RISE have similar objectives and face similar challenges,” stated Diego Arnone, coordinator of DEDALUS. “Launching a collaboration between the two research initiatives is beneficial not only for the two projects, but also for the residential energy consumers who, properly engaged and by means of proper disruptive technologies, can start to participate in new demand response programs. This will be a significant step toward energy efficiency, energy consumption awareness and carbon footprint reduction”.

“The synergistic integration of these two projects is expected to amplify their impact, enhancing the efficiency and scalability of energy management solutions across European grids and energy communities,” said Axel Bruck – DR-RISE coordinator. By pooling resources, knowledge, and innovation, the collaborative efforts are anticipated to deliver more robust demand-side strategies, expanding access to residential end-users, and contribute significantly to the EU’s ambitious targets for energy sustainability and ecological transition.

(Photo Credits: Image by iStock)

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The DEDALUS project places citizens at the core of sustainable energy management, empowering them to take control of their consumption through advanced technology and a user-centered approach. This synergy between people and technology paves the way for a more resilient energy future.

DEDALUS is an innovative European project designed to revolutionise the way residential energy demand response (DR) is approached, with a focus on energy efficient homes.

Its overarching goal is to develop a flexible, user-centred ecosystem for demand response that effectively engages residents in managing their energy consumption.

Leveraging advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), the internet of things (IoT) and blockchain, the project aims to deliver multi-value, energy carrier-agnostic solutions adaptable to various European contexts, both geographically and climatically.

User-centric approach

DEDALUS recognises that achieving sustainable energy efficiency on a large scale requires more than just technical advancements; it requires the active involvement of end-users. Rather than viewing residents as passive consumers, DEDALUS treats them as essential participants in the energy transition, integrating their preferences and motivations directly into the design and functionality of DR solutions.

This user-centric approach is supported by a robust social science framework, which draws on behavioural science, motivation theories and socio-economic factors to understand how different segments of the population interact with energy saving technologies and programmes.

Through this framework, DEDALUS aims to overcome common obstacles to the adoption of DR solutions by addressing users’ real needs for comfort, customisation and energy and environmental literacy.

One of the core innovations of DEDALUS is its co-creation approach, where end-users are actively involved in the design and evaluation processes. Through workshops, segmentation analysis and feedback on tool interfaces, the project gathers essential insights that help refine its strategies and tools.

These co-creation activities explore key drivers and barriers to user participation in demand response, assessing which factors – like comfort, data privacy and energy and environmental literacy – play a critical role in encouraging or discouraging engagement.

By identifying specific user profiles, DEDALUS can target its communication and engagement strategies, tailoring incentives and interfaces to different types of users across pilot sites. For example, some profiles may require more educational support regarding energy saving benefits, while others may need advanced customisation options in their DR tools.

Technology and business models

In addition to its user-centred design, DEDALUS places emphasis on developing the technological infrastructure necessary for a seamless DR experience. The integration of social science insights into the technological framework has led to an enhanced software architecture that prioritises accessibility, security and user-friendly interfaces.

The project’s technical work packages ensure that DR solutions not only support user engagement but also align with broader energy system requirements. Advanced machine learning techniques, for instance, are employed to analyse electricity load profiles, helping identify and optimise demand response opportunities while respecting user comfort preferences.

Furthermore, DEDALUS explores innovative business models to support the long-term sustainability and scalability of DR solutions, considering economic incentives that appeal to a wide range of users. By involving users from diverse backgrounds and geographical regions, the project builds a replicable model that can be adapted across the European Union, laying the groundwork for a unified approach to residential DR that supports regulatory harmonisation and market stability.

Ultimately, the DEDALUS project seeks to position residential communities as active stakeholders in the energy transition. By combining cutting-edge technology with a deep understanding of user behaviour and preferences, the project not only advances the field of demand response but also contributes to the creation of a more resilient, sustainable and user-driven energy ecosystem across Europe.

(The original version of this article is available at this link on the ENLIT media platform).

Image by Michael Schwarzenberger from Pixabay

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The study highlights how artificial intelligence, blockchain, and smart systems can enable buildings to actively support smart grids, overcoming regulatory and technical challenges for economic and environmental benefits.

The study provides an in-depth analysis of technological advancements for enabling buildings to actively participate in smart grid demand-response programs. It was conducted as part of the DEDALUS project by  the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca (TUC) and the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), and recently published in Energy & Buildings.

The research offers valuable insights for academics, industry leaders and policymakers, shedding light on both opportunities and challenges in integrating advanced solutions into smart buildings.

The analysis underscores the critical role of innovative technologies such as AI-driven energy prediction models, blockchain for secure and transparent transactions, and interoperable systems that enable seamless communication between devices. These advancements are pivotal in enhancing energy flexibility and ensuring the efficient integration of buildings into smart grids. Furthermore, the transformative potential of decentralized technologies, particularly blockchain, is highlighted as a key enabler in fostering transparent and secure energy marketplaces.

However, the adoption of demand response programs is hindered by several barriers, including ambiguous regulatory frameworks, technical compatibility issues among building systems, and persistent concerns regarding data privacy. It is essential to address these obstacles to fully unlock the potential of these initiatives.

Despite these challenges, the economic and environmental advantages of demand response programs are significant. By aligning energy consumption with renewable energy production, such programs not only reduce costs for consumers but also enhance grid stability and contribute to ambitious decarbonisation targets.

These innovations enable buildings to evolve from passive energy consumers into active contributors to grid stability and sustainability.

“At NTUA, we are committed to advancing research that drives the energy transition through cutting-edge technology. Our collaboration with TUC has enabled us to explore innovative solutions for optimising demand response in smart grid-integrated buildings. By reviewing technology enablers and addressing innovation challenges, we aim to contribute to a more sustainable and efficient energy future,” stated Elissaios Sarmas, researcher ad DSS Lab of NTUA.

“This research emphasizes how emerging technologies like AI and blockchain can fundamentally transform buildings into proactive players within energy grids and demand-response programs. By unlocking their potential, we can accelerate Europe’s journey toward a more sustainable and resilient energy ecosystem. However, achieving this requires a concerted effort among stakeholders—policymakers, industry, and researchers—to address regulatory gaps, foster collaboration, and implement unified strategies for seamless integration,” explained Tudor Cioara – professor and senior researcher at the Distributed Systems Research Laboratory of Technical University of Cluj-Napoca. 

For full access to the study, click here for download

(Photo Credits: Armando Capochiani)

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From June 11 to 13, Venice will host the 2025 IEEE MetroLivEnv. DEDALUS and DigiBUILD are co-organizing a special session on high-quality data and digital services to enhance Demand Response in the built environment.

As part of the 2025 IEEE MetroLivEnv international workshop, DEDALUS and its sister project DigiBUILD  are collaborating to host a Special Session focused on advancing energy-efficient and sustainable building practices through digital transformation. This session, titled “Application of Digital Services in the Built Environment: Empowering Innovation through High-Quality Data-Driven Measurement Processes to enhance Demand Response strategies”, will highlight how cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence, real-time data analytics, and demand response strategies are revolutionizing the built environment.

Innovating the Built Environment with Digital Technologies

The joint special session will dive into the practical application of digital tools and measurement techniques in enhancing the BE sector. Emphasis will be placed on the role of high-quality data and AI-driven solutions in addressing global challenges, from optimizing energy use to improving occupant comfort and well-being.

Key topics include:

• The integration of demand response strategies to optimize energy consumption, reduce peak demand, and maintain grid stability while ensuring occupant comfort.
• AI-powered methodologies for managing complex and diverse BE data.
• Real-world applications of digital tools, including energy profiling, forecasting, and smart resource management.
• Case studies that demonstrate how DR and AI technologies are driving transformative advancements in the built environment.

Call for Participation

Researchers, industry leaders, and policymakers are invited to contribute to this dynamic session. Attendees will gain insights into cutting-edge research and practical applications that demonstrate how digital technologies are shaping a sustainable and resilient built environment. Contributions are particularly welcomed from those exploring Artificial Intelligence, demand response strategies, and advanced metrology in the built environment context.

Find out the programme at this link!

(Photo Credits: Image by Roman Babakin from iSTOCK)

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A new video, produced by the EU-funded DEDALUS project, explains how advanced technology-driven energy management solutions can empower households.

Residential energy consumption accounts for 27.4% of the EU’s total energy use, significantly contributing to seasonal and daily peak demands. This presents challenges for utility providers, who must scale energy generation to maintain an uninterrupted supply.
To better balance supply and demand, the thermal energy storage and power management capabilities of buildings can be utilized—a concept known as flexible consumption—which could be pivotal for the residential sector’s transition to greener energy.

The DEDALUS project addresses this challenge by designing, developing, and demonstrating a demand response ecosystem tailored to optimize and manage automated energy consumption in residential buildings. By integrating social, technological, and business aspects, the project aims to facilitate and scale up residential energy consumers’ participation in these programs, potentially reducing their energy costs by up to 15%.

For a comprehensive overview of its innovative strategies, watch the video!

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