Introduction
Energy communities (ECs) are gaining increasing attention across Europe as mechanisms allowing citizens, local authorities, and organisations to collectively participate in the energy system. By enabling local renewable energy generation, self-consumption, and shared governance models, ECs contribute to more decentralised and participatory energy systems while creating environmental, economic, and social benefits for their members. For instance, the Citizens’ Energy Package (COM/2026/115) the latest policy initiative published in March 2026 by the European Commission, highlights community-owned renewable energy as a key instrument to improve energy affordability, strengthen local control over energy systems, and enhance energy security. The initiative aims to increase installed community energy capacity tenfold to 90 GW by 2030, while protecting energy-poor households and promoting energy efficiency measures.
Despite this growing interest, the recognition and strong policy support through European policy frameworks, the practical development and operation of ECs remain uneven across Europe and often complex to implement. Many initiatives face barriers related to institutional frameworks, financing, and administrative procedures, as well as socio-cultural challenges such as low awareness of the EC concept and limited understanding of its potential benefits among citizens. These factors often slow down the creation of new communities and limit their ability to fully exploit local renewable energy resources. This implementation gap is reflected in recent policy assessments. A recent report by the European Court of Auditors notes that the European Commission set an objective in the EU Solar Energy Strategy to establish at least one renewable energy community in every municipality with over 10,000 inhabitants by 2025. However, due to limited oversight and the non-binding nature of the target, Member States had achieved only 27% of this objective by January 2025.
Bridging the implementation gap: the MASTERPIECE digital ecosystem
Addressing these barriers requires practical tools that simplify the establishment and management of energy communities. In this context, digital solutions can play a role in supporting communities throughout their development and operational stages. MASTERPIECE addresses this need by developing a modular digital platform designed to facilitate the creation and operation of ECs. Central to this approach, is the concept of the behavioural and operational journey of ECs, which structures the different stages that communities may experience, from initial awareness and engagement to operational management and optimisation.
Through pilot demonstrations across Spain, Italy, France, Sweden, and Turkey, MASTERPIECE explores how digital tools can support citizens, community managers, and local stakeholders in developing and operating ECs under diverse social, technical, governance, and regulatory conditions.
MASTERPIECE provides a modular ecosystem of digital tools designed to support the creation, development, and operation of ECs. As illustrated in Figure 1, the platform integrates several complementary services that enable citizens, EC members, and EC managers to interact within the energy system in a more informed and coordinated way.
Figure 1. Overview architecture of the MASTERPIECE modular digital platform. (Deliverable 2.8)
By combining different tools, MASTERPIECE supports activities such as citizen engagement, community management, simulation of energy configurations, and optimisation of energy consumption within the community. In the project, the EC journey showcased in Figure 2 is defined to illustrate how different stakeholders may interact with the platform tools across the lifecycle of an EC.
Figure 2. Tools within the EC journey. (Deliverable 4.2)
This framework illustrates how digital tools can support the activities that occur during the development and operation of an EC, from initial engagement to operational optimisation. The MASTERPIECE modular platform provides unified access to its ecosystem of digital tools. After a single registration, users can access and interact with the different services according to their needs and their role within an EC. Each tool operates as an independent service within the platform. This modular approach allows users to select and use one or several tools depending on the activities they wish to perform, such as community engagement, evaluation of energy configurations, asset monitoring, or flexibility optimisation. As a result, the platform supports different EC structures and operational practices.
To illustrate potential interactions with the platform, MASTERPIECE developed a set of illustrative examples representing typical user profiles, including citizens, EC members, and EC managers. These examples demonstrate how the different tools can support common EC activities and help users understand how digital services can contribute to the development and operation of EC initiatives. By allowing flexible access and independent use of the tools, the modular platform can adapt to the different contexts and needs of energy communities.
Supporting citizen engagement and participation
Citizen engagement and participation are central elements of ECs and therefore of the MASTERPIECE solution. Digital tools were designed from a user-centred perspective to facilitate access to information, encourage interaction between members, and support the enrolment of new participants. Through the MEET App, accessible via mobile or web version, citizens can explore and learn about an EC and interact with community initiatives. Through educational resources and interactive features, the application supports citizens in understanding how community energy initiatives operate and how they can participate. The ECOOP tool facilitates communication and interaction within the EC. Through this tool, new members can join an existing energy community, while current members can access information about community activities, exchange messages and stay informed about developments within the community. These functionalities support transparency and strengthen the sense of collective participation among members. Complementing these tools, the RECOMME tool supports the enrolment and onboarding of community members by profiling within the EC.
Together, these tools create a digital environment where citizens can learn about ECs, interact with other members, and actively participate in community activities.
Energy community planning and management
ECs involve decisions related to renewable energy installations, asset configuration and operational organisation. MASTERPIECE therefore provides digital tools that support planning and management activities within community energy initiatives. The COMPASS tool supports the development of ECs by providing structured access to relevant resources such as funding opportunities, policy guidance, and technical support programmes. In this way, it helps stakeholders identify suitable support mechanisms when planning community energy initiatives. When the focus is on analysing potential energy system configurations and investment scenarios, the SIT (Simulation and Investment Tool) provides simulation capabilities. Through these simulations, stakeholders can evaluate the impact of different investment strategies and combinations of energy resources. In addition, the MAPS DEC (Digital Energy Community) tool provides monitoring and management capabilities for EC assets, based on self-consumption configurations. The tool allows community managers to visualise energy flows, track operational and economic performance indicators, and oversee the operation of distributed energy resources within the community. Together, these tools support informed decision-making regarding the configuration and management of EC energy systems.
Flexibility optimisation and demand response
The integration of renewable energy resources within ECs requires mechanisms that align energy demand with local renewable generation. Within MASTERPIECE, the DR-FLEX tool supports flexibility optimisation and demand response activities within the community environment. The tool analyses energy conditions and provides recommendations that encourage users to adapt their consumption patterns according to renewable generation availability or energy price signals. Through these recommendations, EC members can shift consumption towards periods of higher renewable production or favourable market conditions. This approach supports more efficient use of renewable energy while enabling community members to participate in flexibility strategies that optimise the overall performance of the EC.
Demonstration across European pilot environments
The MASTERPIECE digital tools are being demonstrated through pilot activities implemented across different European countries. These pilots represent diverse social, geographical and organisational contexts where ECs are being explored and developed. The project pilots include a proof of concept at the University of Murcia (Spain), acting as a testing environment for the platform tools and exploring the concept of becoming a Digital Energy Community; a municipal initiative in Berchidda (Italy); a forest village pilot in Turkey (without internet connection); EC initiatives in France, while in the Swedish context the pilot focuses on demonstrating the value and benefits of ECs, given that the current regulatory framework provides limited support for their implementation.
These environments represent different types of EC initiatives involving municipalities, housing cooperatives, schools and citizen groups. The diversity of pilot contexts provides valuable insights into how digital tools can support community energy initiatives under different social and organisational conditions.
Conclusions
The MASTERPIECE project demonstrates how digital tools can support the creation and operation of ECs by facilitating citizen engagement, community management and energy optimisation. Through a modular ecosystem of interoperable services, the platform enables different stakeholders to interact with EC activities according to their roles and needs. The validation of these tools across diverse pilot environments in Spain, Italy, France, Sweden and Turkey illustrates their adaptability to different social, technical and regulatory contexts. Central to this effort is a dual exploitation strategy designed to ensure long-term impact by bringing these Key Exploitable Results (KERs) to market as either an integrated orchestration environment or standalone digital solutions.
By combining digital innovation with real-life pilot experiences and validated business models, MASTERPIECE contributes practical insights and solutions that act as a ‘translation layer’ between EU policy and local implementation. This approach supports the wider development and replication of Cs across Europe, ensuring that the project's technological and social innovations remain sustainable and accessible beyond its lifetime.
