Th!nkE
Th!nk E is a Belgian SME operating on a European scale, active in the domain of energy in the built environment and energy infrastructure.
Th!nk E exploits a unique Living Lab: a building renovated to a grid-supporting net zero energy concept. Thermal and electrical storage technologies are presented and tested, different types of solar renewable energy systems are evaluated and the overall building energy management system is optimised to maximize the solar fraction. The building includes some of the latest building materials and technologies and it provides a perfect testing environment for new and upcoming technologies.
Th!nk E has been involved in different technology evaluation and improvement tracks: from solar thermal systems over ventilation concepts and products to insulation systems. Th!nk E applies the same critical technical view in composing large scale multi-stakeholder projects. With a track record in fruitful cooperations, Th!nk E might be the proposal and project composer bringing you a successful European energy project.
Th!nk E enjoys working in the broader European context. As technical coordinator of both the Smart Cities project City-Zen and the Smart Grids Project STORY, Th!nk E contributes daily to energy efficiency improvements in Europe. Furthermore, Th!nk E coordinates the Bridge cooperation where 22 European projects on Smart Grids and Energy Infrastructure demonstrate and evaluate best practices on innovative business models, products and services to the EU policy and regulation development level.
JOANNEUM RESEARCH Forschungsgesellschaft mbH
JOANNEUM RESEARCH Forschungsgesellschaft mbH (JR), one of Austria’s largest non-university research organisations, is employing around 450 highly qualified staff members thematically structured in 7 research institutes. The role of JR as an innovative partner for business and administration is reflected in its wide range of services: applied research and development for administration and small and medium-sized enterprises is supplemented by custom-designed technical business consulting and vast expertise in interdisciplinary management of complex research contracts at a national and international level.
The interdisciplinary JOANNEUM RESEARCH LIFE Institute for Climate, Energy and Society unites energy experts from technical, social and economic disciplines and addresses key issues related to climate change: to strengthen resilience to climate and weather risks, to minimise the associated economic damage, and to promote the transition to a low-carbon society.
Within LIFE institute, the research group on “Future Energy Systems & Lifestyle” will bring into this project their expertise in stakeholder management, energy systems assessment (LCA), lifestyle analysis and environmental behaviour analysis. The group “International Climate Policy & Economics” has gained national and international recognition for its expertise in energy and climate policy evaluation and instrument design.
B.A.U.M. Consult GmbH
B.A.U.M. Consult GmbH with offices in Berlin and München supports enterprises, municipalities, regions and governmental institutions throughout Germany and abroad with consultancy and training on sustainable development. As a knowledge management company, B.A.U.M. understands its role as a link between research, development, production and marketing of sustainable products and services. B.A.U.M. manages research and development programs and organises conferences and experience exchange events on behalf of governmental and entrepreneurial organizations.
B.A.U.M. has participated in various projects with focus on Smart Energy, ICT and consumer involvement mainly in the role of research coordination, evaluation, transfer and dissemination partner.
Prospex Institute
The goal of Prospex Institute (PI) is to promote the participation of citizens and stakeholders in socially relevant decision-making dialogue and development at home and abroad. In order to fulfil this objective PROS engages with excellent theorists and practitioners. PI’s experts are global leaders in the fields of stakeholder engagement, strategic foresight and have top-level expertise in engaging broad stakeholder groups, often in multi-cultural workshop formats. A core area of specialisation of PI’s experts is scenario development and dynamic strategy development.
As in facilitation and negotiation, the Prospex Institute is a process innovator and focus point of best practice in scenario development and dynamic strategy development. PI’s experts have worked with numerous institutions in the environmental field, from the UNEP Chief Scientist Office, the World Business Council on Sustainable Development, the European Environment Agency, the Flemish Environmental Protection Agency to the German Ministry of Environment. PROS is involved in a number of high-level H2020 scientific projects in the fields of textile recycling (RESYNTEX), forest ecosystem services (SINCERE) and energy storage (EXCESS and STORY). The Institute is located in Brussels, Belgium.
ThermoVault BVBA
ThermoVault is a start-up affiliated to EnergyVille (Belgium) and UC Berkeley (California). The company offers a software and hardware solution for electric energy services of residential thermal appliances. ThermoVault is headquartered in Genk (Belgium) and has access to laboratory and office space on the UC Berkeley campus. ThermoVault BVBA has been created in order to offer a software and hardware solution that unlocks the most cost-effective form of energy storage, while simultaneously allowing for the integration of more renewables.
Our retrofit solution for existing water and space heaters results in direct energy savings for residential customers, as well as a lucrative grid-responsive energy storage device. In addition, our asset management notification system increases the comfort of the end user and reports when an appliance is consuming excessive amounts of energy and/or is in need of repair. Our virtual power plant can be used to offer valuable services to utilities, plumbing companies, appliance manufacturers and system operators, transforming end-users into green, active and profitable stakeholders of the energy transition.
Enbro
Enbro is a private company active in energy transition. It provides energy brokerage, guidance, advice, development and structuring of solutions that reduce the energy bill to residential, commercial, industrial and public consumers. While the main target is reducing the cost of energy, Enbro develops combinations of better behavior, better suppliers, renewable energy and energy savings. All these elements are always complex combinations and results from innovations from various fields.
Enbro takes the innovation through the last mile in packaging the solutions in such way they represent simple solutions or a large part of the market, bringing them more than 80% of the result AND always provides access to immediate net financial benefits for those who joins in. Reducing complexity and understanding the logic behind decisions at large scale allows Enbro to cross the chasm between the early adapters of energy transition and global market acceptance. Such approach allowed Enbro in five years of work to address a large community of 50.000 commercial, industrial and public clients, 30.000 residential clients and 156.000 social rental clients. A solid product and service definition department, involving active participation of top management, is combined with a strong back-office to allow a large pool (+200) of energy consultants that drive simple solution with immediate savings into their markets for having large impact.
TREA
TREA is energy agency located in Tartu, Estonia, providing services to citizens, SME-s and municipalities. TREA consists experts on energy efficiency, energy planning, sustainable transport, energy renovation and energy communities. TREA supports the energy transition of South Estonian region but also in other regions and national level. Agency is actively participating in international cooperation networks, introducing the latest examples of innovation from all over the Europe. Currently, TREA is providing the technical expertise for European light-house project SmartEnCity advising the deep renovation and implementation of smart technologies of Soviet era apartment buildings. Services for smart cities include the energy planning, technical guidance for energy renovation, monitoring of the energy consumption and evaluating the environmental impact of cities/communities.
OurPower
Our Power is an emerging energy cooperative in Austria operating a peer-to-peer marketplace for RES electricity generated by its members. It operates countrywide. OurPower handles the online matching services as well as the whole process of electricity supply and billing. Currently OurPower has 150 members aiming to expand to up to 10.000 over the next two years. OurPower started its supply business in August 2019, and customer acquisition is underway. Interest and support of small scale power producers are huge. OurPower’s portfolio of generators will comprise of all kinds of embedded RES generators from small rooftop solar PV, a small wind farm and several small hydropower plants to biomass plants. OurPower promotes collective financing (crowd investment) and citizen engagement.
OurPower addresses (in its market launch) two different customer segments: private homeowners with solar PV rooftops, whose grace period of the premium feed-in tariff has ended, and communities of citizen financing solar, wind, and biomass projects. Community building reinforcement is the main approach. OurPower closely cooperates with communities and with energy and climate model regions.
HERON
HERON is a Group of companies engaging in the production, supply and trading of electricity. The HERON Group, focusing on the production and supply of electricity, is one of the few vertically integrated undertakings in the sector, having been the first private Group to operate in the Greek liberalized electricity market. It owns, and has successfully operated since 2004, two gas-fired power plants outside Thiva, with a total installed capacity of almost 600 MW. HERON constructed the first private power plant in Greece in 2004, followed by the second, combined cycle power plant in 2009, at the same site. HERON is supported by three large energy Groups. It was established in 2000 by the GEK TERNA Group, ENGIE (ex GDF Suez) and QATAR PETROLEUM. HERON provides substantial support to Greece’s security of supply, its plants using state-ofthe-art technology and operating in line with market needs. On the supply side, HERON is the largest independent electricity retailer, and a rapidly developing natural gas supplier, owning an ever increasing household customer portfolio together with a historical legacy of an extended B2B clientele.
DomX
DomX is an innovative startup company established in Thessaloniki, Greece in 2019. The team consists of highly skilled people with long experience in the development of IoT products and platforms. The passion for pushing smartness into people’s everyday lives motivates and inspires the conception of the company’s products. Focusing on the automation of heating systems, domX developed an integrated hardware and software system offering universal and smart control of heating equipment. The system is composed by a low-cost controller device that is interfaced between the installed boiler and thermostat and accompanied also by a custom-designed smartphone application and a dedicated IoT platform providing measurements collection-analysis and optimal heating control.
The developed solution offers several advantages to end-users, including increased device efficiency, reduced heating costs, optimal adaptation to climatic conditions and user needs, real-time consumption monitoring and several other functions offered on top of legacy appliances. In addition, the domX system is able to provide unique advantages to Energy Suppliers and relevant entities requiring to centrally and remotely control connected heating appliances to provide for unified gas portfolio management.
Uni Mannheim
The University of Mannheim in Germany is a research-oriented university. Its strength is in preparing students to take on leadership roles in business, academia, and society. Its international profile is characterized in particular by its achievements in the economic and social sciences. It is in these fields that the University of Mannheim has repeatedly been ranked as one of the top 20 European research universities. Staff members at six schools and departments teach and carry out research in Business Administration, Economics, the Humanities, Social Sciences, Law, and Business Informatics and Mathematics. The first German Consumer Psychology Chair held by Prof. Michaela Wänke is part of the psychology department.
ICLEI Europe
ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability is a global network of more than 1,750 local and regional governments committed to sustainable urban development. Active in 100+ countries, we influence sustainability policy and drive local action for low emission, nature-based, equitable, resilient and circular development. Our Members and team of experts work together through peer exchange, partnerships and capacity building to create systemic change for urban sustainability.
ICLEI Europe provides its members in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and West Asia with a voice on the European and international stage, a platform to connect with peers and tools to drive positive environmental, economic and social change. ICLEI Europe works closely with an extended network of local and regional governments and partners on a broad range of topics.
Elektrizitätswerke Hindelang e.G. (EWH)
The cooperative Elektrizitätswerke Hindelang e.G. (EWH) was founded in 1920’s by citizens of Hindelang for the electricity supply of their village. Since about 100 years this “energy community” generates electricity from local resources, organizes local energy trading to 5.000 inhabitants and operates the grid of Bad Hindelang. Geographically EWH is located in the municipal area of Bad Hindelang in the touristic Allgäu region (part of mountainous Bavaria in Southern Germany) with 5.000 inhabitants. 330 citizens and SMEs (plus municipality) are members of the cooperative. In 2018 EWH produced 5 GWh electricity in self owned generators (> 60 % local hydropower). Another 5 GWh stem from local private hydropower operators and 2 GWh from roof-top PV.
In the near future EWH will start supplying its members and customers with natural gas and is in the process of establishing an adequate EV-charging infrastructure. EWH cooperates with 8 other utilities in the Allgäu region under the power label “AllgäuStrom” and the EV-charging community “AllgäuStrom mobil”. Together they advertise their “AllgäuStrom” offerings and achieve better conditions for energy and other purchases. Currently, partners are jointly developing an “AllgäuStrom 100%” product to leverage the extremely high penetration of the region with hydro and solar power.
University Schloss Seeburg
Not far from Salzburg, the private university Schloss Seeburg offers bachelor's and master's degree programmes in business administration, sports and event management and business psychology as well as a Master of Business Administration (MBA) in General Management. This programme is complemented by a doctoral programme in Innovation & Creativity Management. In the four defined research foci Creativity and Innovation, Economic Decision Making, Relational Career Research and Marketing and Sport, the Private University Schloss Seeburg strives for research achievements with international visibility. Research results are published in internationally leading journals, presented at conferences recognised in the scientific community and, if possible, funded with qualified third-party funds. In these areas, the university cooperates intensively with national and international publication-oriented scientists from other universities and supervise publication-oriented doctoral theses. The close cooperation within the team of colleagues, which includes business economists, economists and psychologists, favours an interdisciplinary orientation of research activities.