Towards Smart, Sustainable, Energy Positive, and Zero Carbon Communities: Challenges, Solutions and Impacts

This book presents some of the key findings from the EU-funded SPARCS project.
Renewable technologies for enabling the transformation of cities into sustainable smart cities, already exist. However, their wide deployment, penetration and value obtainment relies on the deep and comprehensive understanding of real-life complexities imposed during actual operation, as well as, on the wide acceptance of smooth communication and interaction between citizens, local communities, industries and authorities. The EU-funded SPARCs project encourages the participation of blocks of buildings and districts in the energy market, aiming to turn urban areas into energy prosumers. SPARCs engages 30 partners from 9 EU countries and coordinates a wide range of stakeholders from citizens and local planning authorities to companies and research institutions for the transformation of cities to carbon-free inclusive communities. SPARCS finds solutions eligible for banking support based on pioneering business models, tailored on interactions between the citizen, building and urban energy systems, as well as effective governance model to facilitate the transformation process.