21 January 2019

Kick-off of RES Living Labs

The concept of Living Labs is being applied across Europe to support innovation in a wide range of sectors. This experimental approach is based on the collaboration of a large panel of stakeholders in face-to-face settings.

PROSEU will apply this inclusive and non-hierarchical approach in its research, by setting up at least 15 RES Living Labs in 9 countries across Europe. The RES Living Labs are based on the highly participatory method of “co-creation”. They are an interesting way to bring citizens to the front and centre. Through these, citizens will contribute to the goals of the EU Energy Union, namely to promote a more sustainable, democratic and inclusive energy transition.

PROSEU is establishing RES Living Labs to engage with renewable energy stakeholders from government, the business sector and civil society. To be able to co-create solutions and to innovate, PROSEU is setting up common spaces for not only discussion and collaboration, but also for exchanging visions, expectations, barriers and drivers related to RES Prosumerism. This process recognises that the challenges that have been addressed and the solutions that have been developed by each Living Lab will differ depending on the local context. At the living labs all stakeholders have an equal opportunity to participate.

The PROSEU research team, while being able to draw on the collective experience of the stakeholders involved, will facilitate several co-creation sessions. These are to be carried out to be able to develop joint solutions for overcoming the barriers that are to be identified at the beginning of the Living Lab process. The PROSEU team will share their legal, technical, business and financial expertise with the Living Labs. Living Lab stakeholders will benefit from first hand research insights that are offered to them by project partners as well as from the knowledge exchange that is facilitated through participation in the RES Living Lab both on a national and international level.

Currently, PROSEU´s project partners are facilitating their first four co-creation activities together with the Living Labs. They are capturing the different contexts and challenges in operational roadmaps. For a first insight into this process, please take look at the example of our Portuguese RES Living Lab, which involves representatives of wineries from the Alentejo region in Portugal who are dedicated to adopting renewable energy production and self-consumption. Other Living labs will be held with the municipality of Santorso in Italy, with Somenergia in Spain as well as in The Netherlands. More information from these and other PROSEU Living Labs will become available soon!

For more information about PROSEU’s approach and on participating in Living Labs, you can check out this article on our website.

For the Living labs we are working with, you can visit this page.