“In summer it gets very hot here, and in winter it’s very cold. So I was curious to see if there was a way to overcome this inconvenience.” These are not exceptional words; anyone might use them to explain why they decided to get involved in an experiment to better handle domestic energy. What makes them exceptional is that, in this case, they are spoken by 72-year-old Simonetta Tazzer. An age that makes many things more difficult, especially when technological adaptations are required.
The experiment in question is that of Borgo Mazzini Smart Cohousing in Treviso, part of the Italian pilot for the DEDALUS project—an initiative focused on human-centred energy innovation. Here, the challenge was to ensure that innovation remains an invisible ally rather than a technical burden. Silvia Palma, a project manager at EnEA who worked closely on the Treviso pilot, explains that the residents’ feedback was the actual engine of the development: “Simonetta collaborated with us to help train the services and algorithms, enabling us to personalise her apartment’s comfort levels and encouraging energy flexibility while strictly maintaining her domestic well-being.” Every morning, Simonetta receives a WhatsApp message with three simple temperature options. For her, the logic is straightforward: “It is a very simple thing that even I can understand, even though I am not technological at all and I am of a certain age.”
However, the path to inclusion is rarely straight. In the Danish DEDALUS pilot in Herning, researchers confronted a complex social reality: the attempt to engage a multicultural neighbourhood through traditional communication methods was met with near-total silence. Sending letters or providing apps to a community where language barriers are significant and institutional trust is low proved ineffective. Thomas Lyngvad and Henrik Lund Stærmose, https://www.linkedin.com/in/henrikstaermose/ who oversaw the pilot, faced a human barrier: a deep suspicion of authorities and the absolute priority of basic needs among refugee families who, fearing high costs, often turn their heating off completely, living in temperatures as low as 15 degrees.
This gap between technical dreams and human reality is well known to Michael Brenner-Fließer, a sociologist at Joanneum Research in Graz, Austria, and Chair of the Working Group on Consumer and Citizen Engagement at BRIDGE, the European Commission’s initiative that unites dozens of smart energy projects. “Generally, we have made significant progress with technical tools, but we underestimated the social component and the reluctance of human beings, as creatures of habit, to change,” Brenner-Fließer observes. To overcome this, BRIDGE is promoting the concept of “Societal Readiness” - a requirement to ensure that tools are designed to be implementation-ready from a human perspective before they even hit the market.
This search for a “human bridge” finds a powerful parallel in the SocialNRG project, which operates in the social housing pilot of Cinisello Balsamo (Milan) to tackle energy poverty through the creation of renewable energy communities. Here, vulnerability is often linked to an information deficit that exacerbates financial hardship. Sara Zoni, representing Innovacoop, notes that many residents—mainly seniors over 80—are excluded simply because they lack the tools to navigate a complex energy market. Zoni emphasises that understanding an electricity bill is a challenge even for professionals, let alone for elderly residents. This literacy gap leads to inefficient home use and leaves citizens exposed to risks: “They reported frequently falling victim to phone scams regarding energy contracts,” Zoni explains, “which is why they asked for an awareness and information path.” The solution implemented by SocialNRG is “human mentoring” through the TED (Tutor per l’Energia Domestica, or Household Energy Tutors) – specialised figures who provide free support in deciphering utility bills and choosing fair contracts.
Brenner-Fließer confirms that this is the only way forward: “Establishing trust ultimately depends on solution providers building genuine, trust-based relationships with citizens. This is not an easy task and requires significant time and effort—often invisible in successful outcomes, but very apparent when it fails.” According to the BRIDGE chair, the most effective approach is working with local facilitators who already enjoy the community’s trust, whether they are local leaders, skilled tradespeople, or municipal tutors.
For Alexandra Revez, a Research Fellow at University College Cork, identifying these “invisible” groups is the real challenge. She argues that we are “always looking for the tech fix when there’s a lot of social and political fixes that we need to follow through as well.” Revez points specifically to single-parent families—most often headed by women—and people with disabilities as being at high risk of political and social exclusion. Participation requires time and mobility that these groups often do not have. To foster their involvement, she suggests providing concrete logistical support, such as childcare services during community meetings or tailored accessibility tools, ensuring the transition does not become a privilege for the few.
This analysis finds its ultimate pragmatic confirmation in the words of Diego Arnone, coordinator of the DEDALUS project. For many, the “green revolution” is a distant thought compared to daily survival. Arnone uses a stark metaphor: for many vulnerable families, talking about the energy transition is “like talking about pastries to those who lack bread and water.”
However, Arnone believes the problem goes deeper into the very fabric of our changing continent. “We are designing for a society that is rapidly ageing, while the ‘fresh blood’ is coming almost exclusively from migratory trends. To ignore these demographic shifts is to design technology for a population that doesn’t exist,” he warns. To prevent energy digitalisation from becoming a new form of “high-tech exile” for the elderly or the newly arrived, Arnone argues that technology must become a servant, not a master. “In our pilots, we have seen that the most successful innovation is the one you don’t even notice. It must adapt to the rhythm of the home, not the other way around.”
As highlighted during the 2025 International Social Housing Festival, resident participation is no longer a procedural box to tick, but the cornerstone of social sustainability. By starting from the real-life needs of people like Simonetta, the energy transition can finally move from being a technical mandate to a shared human journey.
Article written by Selene Verri
About DEDALUS
DEDALUS is an EU-funded project that develops and demonstrates a participatory Demand Response ecosystem enabling residential consumers to actively contribute to energy flexibility from home to district scale. The project combines social science approaches, AI tools, digital twins, and interoperable data platforms to support multi-energy scenarios and community engagement. Its solutions will be validated in five large-scale pilots across Europe and replicated in additional pilots.
Project website: DEDALUS HORIZON
LinkedIn: DEDALUS
YouTube: DEDALUS-EU
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