Cagliari Smart Condominium, Italy

Case study leader

R2M and AXPO

The Via Bolzano 4 condominium was built in 1966 and has eight, four-room, 85 m² apartments.

It has an energy rating of G (the lowest possible). There is no central heating, only individual heating units with no energy monitoring or control systems.

The building currently has envelope water/air leakage and a maintenance/retrofit is scheduled by R2M Energy independently of the Lightness Project.

Given this planned renovation, there is the opportunity to retrofit and showcase a “smart condo” concept consisting of interventions like:

Formation of a Citizen Energy Community at the building-level.
Installation of 20kWp solar system on a rooftop.
Change of energy supply contract to AXPO with new contractual options and flexibility.
Blockchain-enabled energy management.
Real-time analytics and data available to prosumers.

An ENER2CROWD crowdfunding campaign was conducted in December 2021 to finance the retrofit of the Smart Condo. 151.010 € were raised within few hours from the campaign opening.

Local Energy Community Buildings

Condominium: Private multi-apartment buildings

involved in the project demo

apartments

stakeholders

private end users

Immediate potential outreach after the project

550 private end users

Over 50% of the Italian population live in multi-family dwellings. Cagliari has a population of 80,000 people, and the Cagliari metropolitan area has a population of 500,000 inhabitants.

Type of business

Business-to-Consumer

Services that will be tested

In-house and Citizen Energy Community optimisation, smart contracts, Time of Use (ToU), peak savings.

Challenge

There is a lack of confidence and a proven track record on how to implement new EU energy regulations regarding energy communities and collective self energy consumption. However, showcasing this pilot site will send an important signal to the market and other energy actors. The engagement process assumes that before the start of the project, there are already solid informal relationships between the community members, as the residents live in the same building and meet from time to time.