By Alasdair Sandford

It was voted the “happiest” Polish city to live in, according to one government study into the quality of life. Gdynia’s grounds for promoting itself as a desirable destination may have solid foundations – but winters in the Baltic port are described as “long, very cold, snowy, windy”, and the city has every incentive to mirror the country’s overall positive energy efficiency record in recent years. In one nursery school, efforts to encourage good practice begin by actively engaging very young children.

“The key to promoting energy-saving behaviour in the kindergarten is to combine education with play, such as thematic games, theatrical scenes, songs or rhymes about saving electricity and water,” says Bozena Zulawska, specialist in Gdynia’s energy department, and leader of a pilot scheme in the vanguard of a European project to develop affordable technological solutions for energy efficiency. The proactive involvement of teachers and parents is also encouraged, to set a good example: “Turning off the lights, turning off unnecessary equipment, or closing doors and making sure windows are closed when the heating is on – the small gestures which children observe and imitate. Thanks to such actions, children learn how to care about the environment from an early age.”

Old buildings, smart solutions

A neat row of solar panels spans the length of the long, white, one-storey kindergarten’s sloping roof; the photovoltaic (PV) plant was installed as part of a renovation in 2015. A decade on, innovative technology is also at the heart of the EU-funded BuildON project. Launched in 2023 and due to end in November 2026, BuildON has been seeking to develop solutions for a new generation of “smart buildings” – structures using state-of-the-art techniques to optimise performance – via a combination of technologies including digitalisation and automation. In Gdynia a smart heating management system is being installed which Zulawska says will help the kindergarten “go fossil-free by introducing control systems, digital twins and various monitoring tools”. Dating from 1951, the school forms part of an EU building stock of which 85% was built before 2000 and three-quarters have poor energy performance, according to EU figures. Improvement is key to meeting emissions targets: around 40% of energy consumed in the EU is used in buildings. Yet renovation rates are just 1% and building emissions have been falling too slowly.

“Smart tools are no longer optional enhancements, they are essential infrastructures for a decentralised, digital, and participatory energy system,” says the annual report for 2024-2025 from the BRIDGE Consumer and Citizen Engagement Working Group, which focuses on citizen engagement, particularly with HORIZON-funded projects. But technology will only work if people can afford it, know how to use it, and understand the reasons for doing so. There was a “big problem” with early rollouts of smart energy solutions, says Dr Michael Brenner-Fliesser, Chair of the BRIDGE working group and Research Scientist at Joanneum Research. “It was very monodirectional; we had the producers on one side, and the consumers on the other... I think at the beginning we focused too much solely on the technical solutions that we need to work in this new environment. But I think soon we realised that the consumer and the citizen are a very important part of this transformation and we really need to create solutions that are taken up by people.”

Citizen engagement: easier said than done

One BRIDGE working subgroup surveyed 25 projects concerning smart energy systems and related initiatives, centred around community involvement and participation. The results found that EU recommendations on issues such as inclusivity and energy poverty were being implemented “only on a limited scale” – identifying as “major obstacles” factors such as “economic hardship” and “limited awareness or misinformation about climate and energy issues”. Other factors such as mistrust among vulnerable groups, digital exclusion and geographic isolation were also identified.

“With digital solutions for the energy transition in particular, people’s behaviour is really important,” argues Kristian Mancinone, an expert on citizen engagement from Icons Innovation Strategies and closely involved with BuildON. Gdynia is one of several pilot sites: the others being residential buildings in Spain and Finland, an office building in France, and two car dealerships in Greece. Key factors are citizen engagement and usability; in Gdynia for example, the idea was to install components such as sensors and thermostats during the day, so that children could learn how the system worked. However, hiring people for the co-design of projects and training has been challenging since technical tools and guides are mostly in English. “Local staff are not always fluent in speaking or understanding English, so we’re now looking at how to carry out training activities in local languages,” explains Mancinone, adding that the involvement of local partners as mediators or facilitators can help projects progress. But limitations to some of the pilots have revealed what he calls “a mismatch between what you’ve planned and what you’re able to do”.

Smart tech’s ‘wake-up call’

The EU’s key legislative framework for buildings is contained in the 2024 Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD), whose technical goals include encouraging smarter buildings, with more automation and control systems. The European Commission’s Citizens Energy Package, published in March 2026, is – as the name suggests – more geared towards people. Among its aims are smoother access to data from smart meters, that can provide real-time information on energy usage. One 2024 research study from Germany sheds light on citizens’ preferences for smart energy technologies, designed to help planning for future smart districts. Based on online interviews with nearly 3,000 consumers, it identified some sharp discrepancies between different age and socioeconomic groups. For example, relatively well-off young and urban families ranked smart plugs (allowing appliances to be controlled remotely) top of a list of 16 smart technologies, whereas poorer, older and semi-urban citizens put them second bottom. Overall, “green/renewable energies” (such as PV systems and heat pumps) were “strongly preferred”, while “housing quality” technologies (including the likes of smart thermostats and smart plugs) were given a low rating. “Our results reveal which smart energy technologies and services citizens have little or no preference for. Existing smart districts with a high share of these ‘unpopular’ smart energy technologies and services may take our results as a wake-up call,” the study concluded. “If smart districts… are to be adopted, they must be designed to suit the wants and needs of citizens,” it added. “Technical and human factors must have equal weight in the design process.”

Involve people early, make it easy

Experts have several ideas for successfully engaging citizens in smart energy development. “The first thing is really engaging them from the beginning in terms of co-designing and co-creating the solutions,” says Kristian Mancinone. He suggests cluster projects to pool technological knowhow, coordinated funding to boost social innovation, and to encourage place-based energy transformation by promoting close connections between project managers and local partners. “We need to find common ground and bring people together… Sometimes solutions that are not so technically advanced might be the ones that citizens prefer,” argues Michael Brenner-Fliesser. “Make it as easy as possible for people. Make it touchable, let them switch some switches if they want to. Let the more technical stuff run in the background as much as possible.”

In Gdynia, efforts are underway to make the technology more accessible to its end users. “Once you find the right key to talk with technical partners and to really make them understand the value of doing social innovation activities, they understand that you can realise everything,” says Kristian Mancinone. “What I've seen that works in other projects is that when you have a local team which is really skilled in transferring knowhow and practical experience in the field with final users, they reach much better results – because you really have to talk with and to engage people.” Despite its teething troubles, Bozena Zulawska is confident that the Polish project can set an example for others to follow. BuildON solutions, she says, can be implemented “not only in one kindergarten; we can do it for all kindergartens and all schools” in Gdynia: “The pilot showcases how digital innovation can drive sustainable transformation in public buildings.”