New technologies offer incentives for property owners and users to test innovative energy efficiency solutions and to lower their energy consumption. AREA 21 promotes the use of new technologies in the Energy Improvement Districts of the project. These technologies shall support the implementation of cooperative energy efficiency solutions in the districts and promote the involvement of energy end-users in energy planning processes. The project develops three new tools which help citizens (be it as building owners or users) to actively participate in the energy planning processes in their district. The ICT tools provide incentives for property owners and users to test innovative energy efficiency solutions, to lower their energy consumption and thus to contribute to local energy transformation. The tools open citizens the possibility to actively participate in the energy planning of their district and provide local public authorities, energy agencies and utilities with effective strategic instruments for involvement of citizens in ongoing and future energy planning initiatives.

AREA 21 develops three different ICT tools that are applied to the project’s Energy Improvement Districts. While the tools are designed for different local contexts, they target challenges that are common to many urban neighbourhoods in the Baltic Sea Region. These common aspects are further underlined by AREA 21’s efforts of transferring the tools to other EIDs of the project.

To learn more about the ICT tools, please check the links below. Moreover, we recommend the AREA 21 Guide on Energy Planning and Management Tools (pdf). One of the three tools, the Energy Improvement Circle tool, is additionally described in a comprehensive report (pdf). The Energy Improvement Circle Tool is a method developed to analyse the potential savings for heat- and electricity peak power on an EID level. The method is applied at the Helsingborg Hospital Area. An ex-post evaluation of the tools is available here.