New INEEXS project promotes the Clean Energy Transition with the development of smart energy services and innovative business models

While significant progress has been made in implementing clean energy policies, the energy system is still largely based on fossil fuels. Throughout all regions and sectors, economic, political, regulatory, technological and behavioural barriers prevent the uptake of energy efficiency solutions and obstruct the economic, social and environmental benefits of the clean energy transition.

To address existing barriers, it is essential to develop new business models and markets for sustainable energy services, improve existing business processes and value chains, and create the right conditions to replicate successful examples, building the capacity of market actors. The new LIFE project INEEXS is providing all these elements.

In the next three years, the consortium will put forth new energy service business models to incentivise the adoption of sustainable technologies, accelerate the energy transition, and support market actors to replicate these models. In addition, it will connect smart energy services across sectors based on energy efficiency, distributed energy resources, demand response/flexibility, electric mobility while including non-energy benefits such as comfort, health and safety.

This approach will be deployed and validated in four different EU Member States: Germany, Spain, Greece and one more MS to be selected during the deployment process. As a first step, INEEXS will analyse the energy services offered by the five business cases, and characterise their unique business model, legal requirements, cost structure, revenue streams and contribution to both energy and non-energy benefits. Then, the existing business models will be redesigned to ensure their sustainable continuation, the connection with new stakeholders and the creation of new revenue streams. Finally, the concepts will be validated in real-world conditions.

“Elaborating innovative and fitting business models by active market participants is pivotal if we are to address the existential challenge of transforming the energy system”. Explains Filippos Anagnostopoulos, Senior Associate at IEECP and Project Coordinator. “The INEEXS project offers a unique opportunity to energy retailers, energy communities, technology developers, energy agencies and real estate companies to validate, replicate, adopt and roll concrete technical solutions with potentially transformative impact.”

By the end of 2025, more than 15.000 customers will be benefitting from new and smart services and almost 4 millions euro will be saved in energy costs by the end-users thanks to the improvements of the existing and viable business models validated by the four cases. These numbers are expected to further increase with the replication of these models throughout Europe.

By adopting new digital technologies, methods and tools to enable automated, accurate, fast and smart solutions, facilitate trust and integrate sectors, INEEXS meets the three key principles of the European Green Deal and contributes to the European Union climate and energy targets to make the Clean Energy Transition a reality.

More information can be found on the project webpage: https://ieecp.org/projects/ineexs/