Utilisation of urban digital twins to co-create flexible positive energy systems for districts

So far, there are hardly any examples that investigate the community-driven urban energy transformation towards Positive Energy Districts (PEDs). Despite different urban energy simulation tools available to help in planning and management of PEDs, the community-wide adaptability of PEDs is still a major concern. This ultimately hinders the progress in realising PEDs and proves to be a major bottleneck to achieve the ambitious EU goal of 100 PEDs deployment by 2025. To close this gap, DigiTwins4PEDs project will use innovative research methods and implementation strategies supported by a participatory process involving key stakeholders and citizens within the stages of co-design, co-creation and co-learning which will be developed, evaluated and iteratively adapted. Through the framework of living labs supported by different case studies, citizens will be continuously engaged throughout the project so that citizen-driven actions can be considered and implemented more easily in the future to enable active consumer participation for a flexible energy management and interaction between PEDs and the regional energy system. To support this public participation process, new tools and methods using Urban Digital Twins will be developed and adapted, allowing citizens to push forward the energy transition of their communities and take more informed decisions.