ECom4Future Consortium – Ecom4Future Project

About ECom4Future

Aim and Motivation

The increasing share of variable renewable energy requires greater use of flexibility, including demand-side resources, yet only a small portion of their potential is currently utilized. While the theoretical relationships between supply and demand are well understood, practical experience and empirical data on demand behavior, price elasticity, and customer response remain limited. In addition, the growing role of energy communities and prosumers in energy markets calls for a better understanding of trade-offs between self-consumption and market participation. Therefore, further comprehensive empirical research is needed to support effective integration of these flexibilities.

Goals for advancing energy communities

Goal 1: Design and development of a physics-informed AI solution for optimized control of energy communities on a cross domain level, by including social, policy, legal and regulatory aspects, without neglecting the technical feasibility by considering the smart grid as well as cross-sector prosumers with EVs, heating and cooling and renewable generation.
Goal 2: Achieve impact by providing the customers and investors with high time resolution power profiles of consumption and production for different use cases. This will assist future investments, market decisions and provides a tailor-made solution that increase efficiency.

Objectives and Technological innovation

The project develops an interdisciplinary understanding of energy communities by integrating technical, psychological, regulatory, and legal perspectives, while identifying key factors that influence participation and user behavior. It analyses market segmentation and user profiles, including apartment buildings, and characterizes energy consumption patterns in modern smart living environments. Advanced physics-informed energy analytics and load monitoring are applied to support fault prevention, forecasting, and investment planning. The project also establishes a coupled local energy market to enable flexibility exchange among community members, while addressing security and privacy aspects through an ICT platform. Through demonstrations at trial sites, it evaluates cooperation among flexibility providers and energy communities, identifies synergies among participants, and promotes dissemination, exploitation, and replication of the developed solutions across the energy sector.

Consortium Partners

Coordinator

As one of the Universities in Germany awarded the status of “Excellence University”, RWTH Aachen University, established in 1870, is a leading technical university in Germany and Europe with over 40,000 students and more than 500 professors. RWTH joins the ECom4Future project with the E.ON Energy Research Centre, Institute for Automation of Complex Power Systems (ACS) and I nstitute for Energy Efficient Buildings and Indoor Climate (EBC).

Participants

The EAS Lab, located at FH JOANNEUM Kapfenberg and FH Campus 02 Graz, comprises renewable power generation plants, hybrid grids including storage units, charging facilities for electric mobility plus the latest innovative measurement, automation and visualisation components.

The EAS Lab is supplied with electrical energy from several photovoltaic systems. The power can either be used directly, or stored or converted into other forms of energy (Power-to-X). A smart charging management system allows electric cars to be charged with self-generated solar power via a household wallbox (3.7kW-22kW) or via a quick charger (50kW DC and 43kW AC). All commercially available Type 2, CHAdeMO and CCS connectors can be used. Another field of research focuses on billing and pricing and involves the testing of different payment options and chip cards.

CAMPUS 02 is an applied university based in Graz, Austria. It adapts its research and development activities to the needs of the industry. R&D at CAMPUS 02 is based on problem-oriented solution competence, structured and analytical procedures as well as innovative approaches on a scientific level. CAMPUS 02 is aware of industry demands and creates appropriate practical concepts and problem solutions, thus serving as a contact for entrepreneurs. At the department automation technology, research and development topics are dominated by the following five areas:

Industrial measurement technology and measurement automation
Virtual methods and simulation in development
Process optimisation with PLCs (programmable logic controllers), mobile devices and wireless communication solutions
Optimisation of energy efficiency
Development of prototypes and demonstrators

The department of automation technology has their own laboratory, in which R&D is put into practice. For these applied R&D purposes, CAMPUS 02 has an array of machines and measurement devices. The EAS-Lab (Energy Analytics & Solution Lab) is an innovative laboratory for answering exciting energy and digitalisation questions. The Lab will take a part as a Trial Side in the Ecom4Future project and will help to verify the theoretical findings.

MicroDERLab team (member of DERLAB network) at Politehnica Bucharest (UPB) has a strong research background in measurement and instrumentation for power systems, and is actively involved in several European and national projects and networks. We are working on several projects fostering ICT solutions for power grid infrastructure to be deployed in the emerging grids. Key expertise is on real-time steady-state and dynamic grid simulation (Typhoon HIL). The infrastructure includes a Synchronized Measurement laboratory with 6 mobile PMU racks, 2 microPMUs (PSL), one PQube3 (100 frames/s) and several (50) unbundled smart meters (1 frame/s) and a datacenter.

Chalmers University of Technology (Swedish: Chalmers tekniska högskola, commonly referred to as Chalmers) was founded in 1829 following a donation by William Chalmers, a director of the Swedish East India Company. He donated part of his fortune for the establishment of an “industrial school”. Chalmers is located in Gothenburg, Sweden. Chalmers focuses on engineering and science, but more broadly it also conducts research and offers education in shipping, architecture and management. The university has approximately 3000 employees and 11,000 students. Chalmers is consistently ranked among the world’s top 100 universities in engineering and technology. Chalmers is broadly engaged in EU supported research projects, e.g. Chalmers is coordinating the Graphene Flagship, the European Union’s biggest research initiative to bring graphene innovation out of the lab and into commercial applications,as well as the development of a Swedish quantum computer. The university is a co-founder of the CDIO Initiative, a member of the UNITECH International program, the IDEA League, the Nordic Five Tech, and the ENHANCE alliances as well as the EURECOM consortium and the CESAER network.

dwh GmbH is the home of an experienced team of experts in the fields of modelling & simulation, artificial intelligence, statistics, mathematics, informatics and data science. Numbers, data, facts and expertise from a diverse range of areas are brought together. Being specialised in the health sector and in transportation and logistics as well as the energy sector, our models and methods are nevertheless applicable to a wide range of other industries as well. We strive to provide decision-makers with a solid foundation for future-oriented decisions.

SC GREENOME SOLUTIONS SRL uses the near zero-energy building built to teach different target groups about more sustainable ways of living and building and will focus mainly on the identification of high time resolution 2Quadrant power profiles measured at their trial site. GreenMogo, located in Mogosoaia, Romania (Cfa climatic region), is a zero-energy building built to teach different target groups about more sustainable ways of living and building. The premise does not only support more sustainable ways of living and building but is also a prosumer providing insight on energy needs for modern local communities. For the project, two buildings will be available: Family residential building of 150m² and a Conference center and residential of 150m2.

DiLT was founded by the end of 2021 as a spin-off of the Institute of Software Technology at Graz University of Technology (TUG) from the “Intelligent Systems” research group. DiLT is short for Domain-Informed Analytics. At its core, DiLT relies on the concept of Trustworthy AI combined with deep domain knowledge. Our toolbox includes: Physics-informed Machine Learning; Edge computing & AI; Probabilistic Machine Learning. We transfer basic research combined with cutting-edge technology into new and highly innovative solutions for intelligent buildings and energy systems. Currently, our team consists of 6 experts in the field our data science, IoT, software engineering, building technologies and energy systems and is located in Graz, Austria.

SWW Wunsiedel GmbH is a municipal utility company based in Wunsiedel, Germany, providing essential infrastructure and energy services to the local community. It supplies electricity, water, heat, gas, and telecommunications (internet and telephony), and focuses on sustainable energy solutions, regional supply security, and customer-oriented services. The company promotes renewable energy, energy efficiency, and innovative projects (e.g., district heating networks and smart energy systems) to support a sustainable regional energy future.

HSB is Sweden’s largest cooperative housing organization and a member-owned federation focused on developing, building, and managing residential properties. Founded in 1923, it works to improve housing conditions by constructing new homes, managing tenant-owned housing associations and rental properties, and supporting long-term homeownership through savings and property management services. HSB promotes sustainable, affordable, and community-driven housing, with strong emphasis on member participation and environmentally responsible urban development.

As a general university, the University of Graz sees itself as an international educational and research institution with a mission to conduct research and teaching that is relevant to and promotes society. With 30,000 students and 4700 employees, the University of Graz makes a decisive contribution to the vibrant life of the Styrian capital. In ECom4Future two research groups are involved. The social psychology group at the institute of psychology is primarily concerned with the reciprocal influence between the thinking, feeling and behavior of people and their (social) environment. They investigate both the foundations and the application (particularly in the environmental field) of goal-oriented, self-regulated and participatory behavior. The group public law and digitalization at the institute of public law and political science investigates Austrian sustainability, environmental and climate law as well as legal questions related to digitalization and the digital transformation of regulatory processes.

Akademiska Hus Aktiebolag is a Swedish state-owned real estate company that owns, develops, and manages properties for universities and colleges across Sweden. Founded in 1993 and headquartered in Gothenburg, it provides campuses, laboratories, offices, and other facilities that support education and research activities. The company works on a commercial basis while promoting long-term sustainable campus development, innovation environments, and collaboration between academia, industry, and society.

TU Wien (Vienna University of Technology) is a public research university in Vienna, Austria, specializing in engineering, natural sciences, and technology. Founded in 1815, it focuses on research and education in fields such as information technology, electrical engineering, architecture, mechanical engineering, and energy systems. TU Wien promotes innovation, interdisciplinary collaboration, and strong links with industry to address technological and societal challenges.