ABUD LAUNCHES RESEARCH GRANT FOR EU COMMUNITY ENERGY RESEARCH
Four university students have been selected for ABUD’s Research Grant to support energy community related research.
Under the leadership of the ABUD – Advanced Building & Urban Design, research is being carried out to map the EU’s community energy potential and to provide an overview of energy communities in all member states.
To support this project, we’ve launched a Research Grant in collaboration with the University of Pécs in Hungary. As the result, four students have been selected to participate in our professional research activity and background study to support policy, advocacy and communication activities aimed at promoting energy communities.
Community Energy (CE) is an emerging social innovation that is steadily gaining ground as an alternative to both household and centralized energy production. Community scale allows for more cost-efficient investment in low-carbon energy systems, leveraging social capital to drive decarbonization and democratizing otherwise vertically integrated energy markets.
The main objective of the study is to support the growth of community energy initiatives across the European Union by providing an easy-to-update database of the current state. Results will inform advocacy efforts to accelerate community energy, fitting a broader political drive to the decarbonization, decentralization, and democratization of the European energy system.
The database will provide a reference point for all subsequent research, policy and social activities, and the selected students will also have the opportunity to join the professional community of European universities, NGOs and EU institutions dealing with community energy and sustainable energy transition.
