The Time to Be Inspired: The Results of the First Webinar

The webinar is part of the knowledge-enhancing activities that the Enercracy project will carry out, focusing on energy communities and prosumerism. Increasing awareness and understanding of energy communities and prosumerism is important for the project. The webinar showcased six examples from five countries where local stakeholders have successfully created communities and local energy production through collaboration. “The purpose of the event is to inspire, share experiences, and highlight opportunities for energy communities and cooperation with local actors in developing local energy production — for example, solar and wind-based energy — as well as how to engage and invite different stakeholders to be part of the transition,” the moderator Kirils started the event with. Attendees from associations, companies, and energy communities gathered alongside municipal officials and the project team itself. In total, 51 individuals participated in the webinar. All had come together to gain deeper insight into the opportunities offered by prosumerism and energy communities, to learn from successful examples, and to understand how these can be realised in practice.

The first speaker of the day presented how the Climate-4-cast project is developing a tool to help cities both achieve their climate neutrality goals and follow the roadmap they have set. The tool allows cities to toggle planned activities on and off, thereby helping them visualise the potential impacts of different actions. ”The tool will be up and running in april 2026”, Donald Alimi from Climate-4-cast says.

The second speaker is from a waste water treatment plant in Jurmala. Mārtiņš Strazds from Latvia explained why it is important for water utilities to become prosumers, in order to supply their own facilities with electricity. “Look at the operational tariffs,” Mārtiņš said, “because these are what drive the electricity costs.” In the plant, they have reduced their electricity bills by 50% by installing solar panels and using the generated electricity. By now, they are investigating how to use their unused PV production in new ways.

From Estonia, Martin Kikas shared their work with energy communities. He described how an energy community can be formed as a response to a local issue that needs solving — for example, high energy prices — and the potential for collaboration with communities that are already used to working together and have local energy production as well. In the StartSun project, TREA helped to build ‘Oma Elekter’ energy cooperative and will continue working to increase the number of members in this open energy community. ”Next stage is a campaign for attracting more members to the energy community,” says Kikas.

From Sweden came an example of how a multi-family housing area is being used as a test lab for energy communities. Since the 1950s, the area has evolved — offices have been converted into homes, and three passive houses have been added. Today, there is a car-sharing service that also functions as a battery storage system for the building. Klas Boman explained that they are working with both heat storage — using the extra-thick concrete under the building combined with a heat pump — and bidirectional chargers, bidirectional cars, batteries, and solar panel installations. They use software that enables monitoring and follow-up. They have evolved to support the grid. “Vattenfall will earn a lot of money, and we will also earn a lot of money,” says Klas.

From Finland came an example of an energy community developed with the additional goal of supporting biodiversity. The River Mustijoki flows through several municipalities and is currently in poor condition, suffering from pollution. Salmon and sea trout used to be common in the river, but have now disappeared. To address this and reduce pollution while also enhancing biodiversity, Juha Niemi explained that they are working to monitor what enters the river and identify the sources of pollution. While reducing emissions, they also aim to invest in recreation and similar opportunities to shift the area’s usage and income potential. Collaboration and communication among those involved in the community are essential. “We use a lot of volunteers to lower costs and also to increase acceptance for what we are working towards in the area,” Juha said.

All presentations gave valuable insights into the pathways of equitable energy transitions grounded in community engagement and collective action between the different stakeholders. Did you miss the webinar? If so, you can see the presentation slides here!

The next webinar in the series ‘Inspiration Station’ is planned to be in January 2026.

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