Search Results (214)

The social acceptance of Renewable Energy Sources (RESs) is a decisive factor in the successful implementation of clean energy projects. This study explores the attitudes, demographic profiles, and common misconceptions of citizens in the Region of Epirus, Greece, toward photovoltaic and wind energy installations. Special attention is given to the role of education, age, and access to information—as well as spatial factors such as visual exposure—in shaping public perceptions and influencing acceptance of RES deployment. A structured questionnaire was administered to 320 participants across urban and rural areas, with subdivision between regions with and without visual exposure to RES infrastructure. Findings indicate that urban residents exhibit greater acceptance of RES, while rural inhabitants—especially those in proximity to installations—express skepticism, often grounded in esthetic concerns or perceived procedural injustice. Misinformation and lack of knowledge dominate in areas without visual contact. Statistical analysis confirms that younger and more educated participants are more supportive and environmentally aware. The study highlights the importance of targeted educational interventions, transparent consultation, and spatially sensitive communication strategies in fostering constructive engagement with renewable energy projects. The case of Epirus underscores the need for inclusive, place-based policies to bridge the social acceptance gap and support the national energy transition. Full article

Renewable Energy Communities (RECs) are voluntary coalitions of citizens, small and medium-sized enterprises and local authorities, which cooperate to share locally produced renewable energy, providing environmental, economic, and social benefits rather than profits. Despite a favorable European and Italian regulatory framework, their development is still limited in the Member States. To this end, this paper proposes a methodology to identify optimal spatial configurations of RECs, based on proximity criteria and maximization of energy self-sufficiency. This result is achieved through the mapping of the demand, expressive of the energy consumption of residential buildings; the suitable areas for installing photovoltaic panels on the roofs of existing buildings; the supply; the supply–demand balance, from which it is possible to identify Positive Energy Districts (PEDs) and Negative Energy Districts (NEDs). Through an iterative process, the optimal configuration is then sought, aggregating only PEDs and NEDs that meet the chosen criteria. This method is applied to the case study of the Avellino Province in the Campania Region (Italy). The maps obtained allow local authorities to inform citizens about the areas where it is convenient to aggregate with their neighbors in a REC to have benefits in terms of energy self-sufficiency, savings on bills or incentives at the local level, including those deriving from urban plans. The latter can encourage private initiative in order to speed up the RECs’ deployment. The presented model is being implemented in the framework of an ongoing research and development project, titled Renewable Energy Communities Monitoring, Optimization, and Planning (RECMOP). Full article

Smart cities leverage digital marketing to promote sustainability and build a distinctive global branding. Despite its growing significance, the role digital marketing in smart city development remains underexplored. This study aims to fill this gap by employing bibliometric analysis of 1908 articles indexed in the Scopus database (2000–2024), using the Bibliometrix R-Studio (version 1.4.1743) and VOSviewer (version 1.6.20). The analysis reveals two thematic clusters: (1) “Digital Innovation and Sustainability”, which emphasizes technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), and big data for energy efficiency and green urban development; and (2) “Governance and Policy”, which highlights digital marketing’s role in enabling participatory governance, citizen engagement, and inclusive urban policies. Findings underscore that digital marketing is not only a strategic communication channel but also a driver of sustainable urban transformation. By synthesizing insights from urban planning, technology, and sustainability, this paper provides a novel perspective on the intersection of digital marketing and smart cities. The results provide valuable guidance for policymakers, city planners, and researchers to harness digital marketing in promoting sustainability and further develop the smart city concept. Full article

The increasing urgency of the energy transition, particularly in ecologically sensitive regions, demands spatially informed planning tools to guide renewable energy development. This study presents a Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) approach to assess the suitability of the Gargano district in southern Italy for the implementation of Renewable Energy Communities. The analysis combines expert-based weighting and the Weighted Linear Combination method to evaluate seven key criteria grouped into environmental, socioeconomic, and technical dimensions. The resulting suitability scores, calculated at the municipal scale, highlight spatial disparities across the district, revealing that areas with the highest potential for Renewable Energy Community (REC) deployment are largely situated at the boundaries of the Gargano National Park. These zones benefit from stronger infrastructure, higher energy demand, and fewer environmental constraints, particularly with regard to wind energy initiatives. Conversely, municipalities within the park exhibit lower suitability, constrained by strict landscape regulations and lower population density. The findings provide valuable insights for regional planners and policymakers, supporting the adoption of targeted, environmentally compatible strategies for the advancement of citizen-led renewable energy initiatives in complex territorial contexts. Full article

Given the increasing energy demand and the environmental consequences of fossil fuel consumption, the shift toward sustainable energy sources has become a global priority. Renewable Energy Communities (RECs)—comprising citizens, businesses, and legal entities—are emerging to democratise access to renewable energy. These communities allow members to produce their own energy, sharing or selling any surplus, thus promoting sustainability and generating economic value. However, scaling RECs while ensuring profitability is challenging due to renewable energy intermittency, price volatility, and heterogeneous consumption patterns. To address these issues, this paper presents a Machine Learning as a Service (MLaaS) framework, where each REC microgrid has a customised Reinforcement Learning (RL) agent and electricity price forecasts are included to support decision-making. All the conducted experiments, using the open-source simulator Pymgrid, demonstrate that the proposed agents reduced operational costs by up to 96.41% compared to a robust baseline heuristic. Moreover, this study also introduces two cost-saving features: Peer-to-Peer (P2P) energy trading between communities and internal energy pools, allowing microgrids to draw local energy before using the main grid. Combined with the best-performing agents, these features achieved trading cost reductions of up to 45.58%. Finally, in terms of deployment, the system relies on an MLOps-compliant infrastructure that enables parallel training pipelines and an autoscalable inference service. Overall, this work provides significant contributions to energy management, fostering the development of more sustainable, efficient, and cost-effective solutions. Full article

One of the primary goals of smart cities is to enhance the welfare and comfort of their citizens. In this context, minimizing the time required to detect fault events becomes a crucial factor in improving the reliability of distribution networks. Fault detection presents a notable challenge in the operation of Smart City Distribution Networks (SCDN) due to complex operating conditions, such as changes in the network topology, the connection and disconnection of distributed energy resources (DERs), and varying microgrid operation modes, all of which can impact the reliability of protection systems. To address these challenges, this paper proposes a fault detection system based on Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), leveraging instantaneous local current measurements. This approach eliminates the need for voltage signals, synchronization processes, and communication systems for fault detection. On the other hand, LSTM methods enable the implicit extraction of features from current signals and classifies normal operation and fault events through a binary classification formulation. The proposed fault detector was validated on several intelligent electronic devices (IED) deployed in the modified IEEE 34-node test system. The obtained results demonstrate that the proposed detector achieves a 90% accuracy in identifying faults using instantaneous current values as short as 1/4 of a cycle. The results obtained and its easy implementation indicate potential for real-life applications. Full article

The Greek islands have been blessed with excellent wind potential, with hundreds of sites featuring annual average wind velocity higher than 8–10 m/s. Due to specific regulations in the legal framework, some GWs of wind parks have been submitted since the late 2000s by a small number of large investors in the Greek islands, favoring the creation of energy monopolies and imposing serious impacts on natural ecosystems and existing human activities. These projects have caused serious public reactions against renewables, considerably decelerating the energy transition. This article aims to summarize the legal points in the Greek framework that caused this distorted approach and present the imposed potential social and environmental impacts. Energy monopolies distort the electricity wholesale market and lead to energy poverty and a low standard of living by imposing higher electricity procurement prices on the final users. The occupation of entire insular geographical territories by large wind park projects causes important deterioration of the natural environment, which, in turn, leads to loss of local occupations, urbanization, and migration by affecting negatively the countryside life. Serious concerns from the local population are clearly revealed through an accomplished statistical survey as well as a clear intention to be engaged in future wind park projects initiated by local stakeholders. The article is integrated with specific proposed measures and actions toward the rational development of renewable energy projects. These refer mainly on the formulation of a truly supportive and just legal framework aiming at remedying the currently formulated situation and the strengthening of the energy communities’ role, such as through licensing priorities, funding mechanisms, and tools, as well as additional initiatives such as capacity-building activities, pilot projects, and extensive activation of local citizens. Energy communities and local stakeholders should be involved in the overall process, from the planning to the construction and operation phase. Full article

This study examines the constrained social acceptance of small-scale geothermal energy in a rural sub-Saharan region, a critically understudied area, characterised by high energy poverty, heavy dependence on biomass, and suitable for geothermal energy exploration. Small-scale geothermal energy may offer an additional option for decentralised power supply through mini grids. The study investigates public awareness and knowledge level of geothermal energy technologies among the residents of Eka Awoke, Ikwo, Ebonyi State, Nigeria, to assess the potential of the deliberative process to enhance the social acceptance of geothermal energy technologies and the development of an improved participatory framework to aid the discussion. Citizen jury and survey methods, combining qualitative and quantitative research techniques, were employed. This study presents the first in-depth analysis of the social acceptance of small-scale geothermal energy for electricity supply in a rural African context. Pre-deliberative assessments revealed that 36% of the jurors had limited knowledge and expressed environmental concerns. The post-deliberative assessment revealed that over 80% of jurors reported improved understanding and views. The study demonstrates that citizen jury, when combined with surveyed results can serve as a powerful and scalable tool for advancing social acceptance of geothermal energy. These findings provide a solid foundation for policymakers, stakeholders, and energy providers to design more effective communication engagement strategies for sustainable energy transition in the community. Full article

Energy communities led by local citizens are vital for achieving the European energy transition goals. This study examines the design of a regional energy community in a rural area of Spain, aiming to address the pressing issue of rural depopulation. Seven villages were selected based on criteria such as size, energy demand, population, and proximity to infrastructure. Three energy valorization scenarios, generating eight subscenarios, were analyzed: (1) self-consumption, including direct sale (1A), net billing (1B), and selling to other consumers (1C); (2) battery storage, including storing for self-consumption (2A), battery-to-grid (2B), and electric vehicle recharging points (2C); and (3) advanced options such as hydrogen refueling stations (3A) and hydrogen-based fertilizer production (3B). The findings underscore that designing rural energy communities with a focus on social impact—especially in relation to depopulation—requires an innovative approach to both their design and operation. Although none of the scenarios alone can fully reverse depopulation trends or drive systemic change, they can significantly mitigate the issue if social impact is embedded as a core principle. For rural energy communities to effectively tackle depopulation, strategies such as acting as an energy retailer or aggregating individual villages into a single, unified energy community structure are crucial. These approaches align with the primary objective of revitalizing rural communities through the energy transition. Full article

Air pollution represents a significant threat to human health and the environment, especially in densely populated metropolitan areas. Determining air pollution levels in urban areas is crucial for raising public awareness about air quality and potential health risks, empowering citizens to make informed decisions about their well-being, potentially leading to improved air quality and healthier communities in the long run. The project proposes CityAirQ, a reliable pollution tracking system, that uses air pollution parameters and environmental data to generate dynamic maps for metropolitan regions. CityAirQ includes the following components: energy-efficient and portable pollution tracking devices equipped with pollution and environmental sensors, a mobile application that displays real-time collected data, together with dynamic environmental maps and, lastly, a cloud-based data pipeline that ingests, processes and stores sensor data. Our system integrates an ultra-compact custom PCB that enables real-time tracking of a broader range of pollutants than any other mobile solution of comparable size, making it a uniquely efficient tool for urban air quality assessment. The system’s performance was assessed in the final phase through testing and data collection in order to validate functionality and reliability. CityAirQ promotes environmental sustainability by providing the tools and information needed to understand, monitor, and mitigate air pollution in urban areas, ultimately contributing to a healthier and more sustainable future. Full article

The transition to clean energy is at the heart of the European Union’s climate strategy, with citizen participation promoted as a key driver. Clean energy communities (CECs) are central to this vision, yet their uptake across Europe remains limited. This study provides a novel comparative perspective on perceived barriers to CEC participation by examining two distinct groups: current members (early adopters) and the general public (potential adopters). Using a cross-national mixed-methods approach, we integrate data from semi-structured interviews with CEC members and a representative survey of citizens in six European countries. The results show that awareness of CECs is generally low and that initiatives are still in the early stages of adoption. While interviewees highlighted regulatory complexity and institutional barriers, survey respondents were more likely to cite lack of awareness, knowledge gaps, and financial concerns. The findings reveal distinct patterns in perceived barriers across adopter groups and national contexts. To support broader engagement, we propose a dual strategy: addressing structural challenges through regulatory and policy reform, while strengthening targeted communication and outreach. We also highlight the role of early adopters as trusted messengers who can help bridge the gap between innovation and mainstream adoption. Full article

In the Anthropocene era, climate change highlights the need to abandon the centralized energy generation model using large installations located far from consumption centers, and to move towards an urban energy transition based on decentralized self-consumption models—both individual and collective—and local energy communities. These approaches reduce emissions and external dependency, strengthening resilience, urban sustainability, and promoting energy justice and citizen participation. This work aims to develop a model for integrating photovoltaic solar systems in urban centers of high heritage value, combining the protection of cultural legacy with climate change adaptation strategies. A methodology is designed to integrate solar energy into urban areas while respecting cultural heritage in the most reasonable way possible. The proposed methodology consists of carrying out a characterization of the municipalities under study, considering legal, demographic, energy, and heritage aspects. Next, a territorial zoning is proposed that differentiates between protected and unprotected areas in each municipality. Visibility maps are developed to assess the impact of the installations by sector from the main visual consumption points, facilitating differentiated decisions to protect the most sensitive environments. In addition, specific measures are proposed, such as locating the installations in non-visible areas and using materials and techniques adapted to the construction typology, to preserve areas of higher cultural value and to implement energy communities and collective self-consumption outside culturally protected zones. This methodology is applied to two urban areas in the province of Jaén (South of Andalusia): Alcalá la Real and Cazorla, which, due to their different characteristics, demonstrate its versatility and adaptability. It is concluded that the transition toward decentralized models is an effective way to adapt cities to climate change, reinforcing social cohesion, contributing to the fight against energy vulnerability, and protecting historical heritage. Full article

The analysis focuses on the practices of Italian renewable energy communities (RECs) which fall within the so-called civic energy sector, as well as citizen-led initiatives, which are widespread, especially in several regions of Southern Italy (Sicily, Sardinia, Campania), characterized by structural socioeconomic conditions of “lag” compared to the more economically developed North of the country. Added to these Southern areas is a richer region in the North (Trentino–Alto Adige) where, however, historical and institutional factors have allowed a wide diffusion and local rooting of collective initiatives for sharing energy from renewables. These initiatives started from the so-called historical cooperatives which still manage the production and distribution of energy derived mainly from hydroelectric plants. Our contribution intends to compare 10 case studies of RECs in relation to their organizational model through a qualitative study based on a set of in-depth interviews and socio-ethnographic observation. We used a complex theoretical lens combining different approaches, especially polycentric governance, multilevel perspective, and social acceptance theories. This framework is useful for focusing our analysis on the decentralization process related to the potential of RECs. The main results of our research concern the different effectiveness and speed of implementation in correlation with divergent structural and institutional conditions; the construction of different coalitions of actors in correspondence with socio-territorial differences, even within the same area of the country (the South); and the emergence of hybrid community energies (a mix of civic energy and citizen-led initiatives). The analysis shows that, despite a tendency towards institutional isomorphism, community energy practices are strongly influenced by local contexts. Moreover, they are significantly governed by a mutualistic and solidaristic logic, but also by strong internal mediation and guidance on the part of their promoters. Full article

The ever-worsening climate crisis necessitates a shift toward sustainable energy systems that prioritise citizen participation. Renewable Energy Communities (RECs) present a unique opportunity to enhance local resilience, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and foster climate mitigation and adaptation through participatory governance. This exploratory study investigates the psychosocial predictors of social acceptance for RECs, with a focus on Socio-political Control and Warm-glow Motivation as key determinants. To this end, we collected 107 questionnaires completed by residents of the metropolitan city of Padua, which is engaged in the EU’s 100 Climate-Neutral Cities by 2030 mission. The results indicate a generally favourable attitude toward RECs and reveal that Socio-political Control, defined as the perceived ability to influence societal and political systems, positively predicts community energy acceptance. Furthermore, Impure Altruism (Warm-glow Motivation) mediates this relationship, underscoring the importance of intrinsic emotional rewards in fostering support for sustainable energy projects. These findings highlight the interplay between individual agency and emotional satisfaction in promoting energy transitions. This study underscores the need for participatory governance and tailored communication strategies to enhance public engagement with RECs. Limitations and avenues for future research are discussed, emphasising the need for broader cross-cultural investigations and experimental designs. Full article

Background: Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) can be impacted by various environmental factors: lifestyle habits, food insecurity, social–economic status, and dietary patterns. The Mediterranean diet (MedDiet) has been associated with a healthier lifestyle and better health outcomes. The aim of this study was to determine whether greater adherence to the MedDiet was associated with better HRQoL in communities with low social and economic statuses living in two social neighborhoods, “Bairro da Rosa” and “Ingote”, in Portugal. Methods: A cross-sectional analysis was performed on 102 citizens currently receiving government social support and attending the “Health Kiosk”, a community center created within the Europe Enabling Smart Healthy Age-Friendly Environments (EU_SHAFE) project enhancing educative sessions and screening by health professionals. The participants answered a 36-item questionnaire about their HRQoL (SF-36) and a 14-item questionnaire about their adherence to the Mediterranean diet (MEDAS). Spearman correlation analysis between variables and multiple linear regression models were used to estimate the effect of the baseline characteristics and MedDiet adherence on HRQoL scores (SF-36). Results: No statistically significant correlation was found between MedDiet adherence and total HRQoL scores across the eight health concepts. However, age was shown to negatively influence HRQoL, whereas daily physical activity had a positive impact on health. SF-36 physical health concepts exhibited a linear trend with respect to MedDiet adherence, while emotional health concepts showed inconsistent patterns across adherence groups. Education and waist circumference influence HRQoL, with higher levels of education correlating with better quality of life and greater waist circumference being negatively associated with aspects such as energy and vitality. These findings suggest that factors beyond dietary patterns, such as physical activity, education, and body composition, play pivotal roles in shaping HRQoL in disadvantaged communities, emphasizing the need for multifaceted public health interventions. Full article