From Innovation to Impact:
Smart Innovation Norway’s Role in HARMONISE
The transition towards smarter, greener and more sustainable cities is not only a technological challenge. Turning districts into Positive Energy Districts (PEDs) also requires new ways of working with people, markets, incentives and business models.
This is at the heart of HARMONISE, a Horizon Europe project developing an end-to-end, interoperable and hierarchical solution to support the transformation of traditional districts into Positive Energy Districts. The project combines digital technologies, energy management, renewable energy integration, user engagement and business innovation, with the ambition to create solutions that are scalable, replicable and user-centred. HARMONISE will demonstrate its solutions across four physical pilots and one digital pilot case.
For Smart Innovation Norway (SIN), the project offers an important opportunity to address a crucial question: how can innovative energy solutions become viable, attractive and scalable in real-world contexts?
Bringing business innovation into the energy transition
Within the HARMONISE consortium, SIN has a distinctive role as the business developing partner focusing on dynamic business models. The Grant Agreement specifically identifies SIN as the “Business Model developer for active user participation.”
SIN’s Energy Systems Research team leads the work on business model definition and deployment for the PED pilot sites, connecting the technical development of HARMONISE with the economic and organisational conditions needed for implementation.
This contribution is captured in one of the project’s key exploitable results: PR8 – Dynamic Business Models for PEDs [SIN]. The Grant Agreement highlights that the Business Model Innovation tool builds on experience from the H2020 E-LAND project, where it was demonstrated in three very different environments: a harbour in Norway, a technology park in Spain and a university campus in Romania.
This experience provides an important foundation for addressing the different stakeholder ecosystems and local conditions that shape PED development.
From technology to viable business models
HARMONISE recognises that developing advanced technologies is only one part of the energy transition.
The project addresses challenges such as high upfront investment costs, limited access to financing and incentives, investment risks, fragmented regulations and resistance to change. Its approach includes incentive analysis and the development of business models that can encourage sustainable urban development.
This is where SIN’s contribution becomes particularly important.
By focusing on dynamic business models, SIN helps ensure that HARMONISE solutions can be considered not only from a technical perspective, but also from the perspective of economic value, stakeholder roles, incentives and long-term sustainability.
Different districts have different energy systems, regulations, stakeholders, financing conditions and user needs. A successful PED business model therefore needs to be flexible enough to respond to these differences.
Putting users at the centre
A defining feature of HARMONISE is its focus on active participation.
The project aims to move beyond the traditional role of consumers by enabling users and communities to participate more actively in local energy systems. HARMONISE places significant emphasis on user satisfaction, co-development, real-environment validation and user-centred interfaces. Its objectives include achieving overall consumer satisfaction above 80% and increasing the participation of small and medium-sized prosumers in flexibility-response mechanisms.
SIN contributes to this ambition through its focus on business models for active user participation.
SIN and EnGreen will incorporate dynamic business models in T7.4 and T8.4, supporting the development of innovative end-user entrepreneurship strategies.
This creates an important connection between business innovation and social engagement: users are not simply beneficiaries of the energy transition; they can become active participants in creating value within it.
Connecting incentives, participation and entrepreneurship
For PEDs to become a reality at scale, stakeholders need clear reasons and opportunities to participate.
HARMONISE therefore combines market and regulatory analysis, incentive-scheme analysis, co-creation and learning activities across its pilot sites. This approach is designed to reflect Europe’s diversity of climates, regulations and local conditions.
SIN’s role is to help translate these different conditions into dynamic business-model approaches.
The project links business-model optimisation with increased social entrepreneurship and citizen participation in energy communities. It aims to identify effective incentive schemes and business models that can optimise the potential financial benefits for PED stakeholders while also supporting wider participation.
For SIN, this represents a key principle: innovation creates greater impact when people and organisations can see how they can participate and benefit from it.
Learning from different contexts
One of the strengths of SIN’s contribution is its experience with business-model innovation across different environments.
The Business Model Innovation approach that forms the basis of PR8 was previously demonstrated through the E-LAND project in three contrasting settings: a Norwegian harbour, a Spanish technology park and a Romanian university campus.
This experience is highly relevant to HARMONISE, where solutions must ultimately work across different European contexts.
Rather than assuming that one business model can be applied everywhere, the HARMONISE approach seeks to develop solutions that can be adapted to different stakeholder ecosystems and local circumstances.
This supports the project’s wider ambition of creating PED solutions that are scalable and replicable beyond the individual demonstration sites.
From pilot sites to European impact
HARMONISE has a clear ambition to move from demonstration towards wider adoption.
The project foresees an extensive market deployment strategy targeting relevant groups across European, national and regional levels. It also includes individual exploitation plans for partners and a joint approach to the future utilisation of project outcomes.
For SIN, this provides an important pathway for taking business-model innovation beyond the project itself.
The wider HARMONISE exploitation strategy aims to create opportunities for replication and spin-offs, while helping stakeholders gain access to validated models and new business opportunities.
This is particularly important for Positive Energy Districts, where successful implementation requires cooperation among municipalities, energy companies, technology providers, building owners, communities, investors and end users.
Working as part of a multidisciplinary European consortium
SIN’s contribution is embedded within a consortium of partners with complementary expertise.
The HARMONISE consortium includes research organisations, universities, grid operators, engineering companies, consulting organisations, a standardisation body and business-development expertise. Within this structure, SIN brings a specific focus on dynamic business models and active user participation.
This multidisciplinary approach is essential because PED transformation sits at the intersection of technology, energy, infrastructure, regulation, economics and society.
The project brings these perspectives together to develop solutions that can work not only technically, but also economically and socially.
Looking towards a more participatory energy system
The ultimate ambition is bigger than individual technologies or individual districts.
HARMONISE seeks to support a transition towards a more integrated energy system in which renewable generation, heating, mobility, storage, flexibility and energy transactions can be managed together. At the same time, the project aims to strengthen the role of citizens and energy communities within this transition.
SIN’s contribution helps address the economic and participatory side of this transformation.
By developing dynamic business models, analysing pathways for active user participation and supporting end-user entrepreneurship, SIN is helping explore how new forms of value creation can emerge around Positive Energy Districts.
The potential impact extends beyond business models themselves. HARMONISE aims to support increased energy efficiency, greater integration of renewable and other energy resources, stronger flexibility and increased participation of consumers and energy communities.
One of the project’s targets is a 13.5% reduction in energy consumption across the pilot sites.
From research to real-world value
For Smart Innovation Norway, HARMONISE demonstrates that the energy transition requires more than technical innovation.
It requires business models that can evolve with changing markets, incentives that encourage participation, and approaches that give users and communities meaningful opportunities to contribute.
SIN’s role in HARMONISE is therefore about helping bridge the gap between innovation and implementation.
Through PR8, its work on dynamic business models, its focus on active user participation and its contribution to end-user entrepreneurship strategies, SIN is helping ensure that the transformation towards Positive Energy Districts is considered from the perspective of both technical feasibility and long-term economic and societal value.
The goal is ultimately simple but ambitious: to help create energy solutions that people, organisations and communities can not only use, but actively participate in and help shape.
As HARMONISE moves towards further validation, exploitation and replication, Smart Innovation Norway will continue contributing its expertise to a European energy transition where technology, business innovation and people come together to create sustainable and scalable Positive Energy Districts.
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