The OptiREC project has officially concluded, marking a milestone in the advancement of energy communities and their integration into modern energy systems and markets. Led by a consortium of multidisciplinary partners including IREC, University of Girona, Comillas Pontifical University, and Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. The project developed innovative methods, tools, and models that enhance the design, operation, flexibility management, and market participation of local energy communities in Spain and across Europe.

Energy communities are increasingly recognized as key actors in the ecological and digital transitions, yet face barriers in operational coordination, system integration, and economic viability. OptiREC was designed to address these challenges holistically. Across four coordinated subprojects, the consortium delivered advances spanning flexibility management, network integration, local energy market design, and wholesale market participation.

OptiREC pursued a comprehensive approach to develop smarter and more integrated energy communities and tackled four high-impact challenge areas, including flexibility management at community/hub level, integration and aggregation of energy communities into distribution networks, design of local energy markets and the mechanisms that link them to national systems and optimal participation of energy communities in wholesale markets.

Through innovative models, tools and advanced forecasting and optimization methods, the project provided actionable frameworks for real-world implementation. The collaboration across engineering, economics, market design, and data science was essential to its success and delivered advances in energy community design, flexibility management, market integration, and optimal market participation.

A Major Step Toward the Energy Communities of the Future

OptiREC has delivered actionable tools and knowledge that empower DSOs, policy makers, aggregators, and community managers to plan and operate energy communities with higher efficiency, lower costs, and greater resilience. The project’s integrated vision—spanning data analytics, optimization, regulation, and real-world pilots—positions energy communities as central actors in Europe’s clean energy transition.

In total, the project generated 19 journal publications (16 published and 3 in review), 3 conference articles and 10 presentations, and 2 book chapters, reflecting a substantial scientific and technical contribution and demonstrating the project’s broad impact across research, innovation, and knowledge dissemination.

The consortium partners are now preparing for follow-up initiatives focused on scaling deployment, supporting regulatory evolution, and accelerating community-level digitalization.

An extended version with additional technical details can be downloaded from:

Acknowledgements (in Spanish): OptiREC (TED2021-131365B-C41) es un proyecto financiado por MCIN/AEI/10.13039/ 501100011033 y por la Unión Europea “NextGenerationEU”/PRTR.