ENLIT Bilbao 2025 — 26/11/2025
Enlit Europe 2025 concluded with resounding success, gathering more than 15,000 energy professionals, 700+ exhibitors, and 500+ speakers at the Bilbao Exhibition Centre from 18–20 November 2025. As one of the sector’s most influential annual events, ENLIT once again proved to be a powerhouse of innovation, debate, collaboration, and forward-looking energy solutions.
A Strong Collective Presence: “Flexible Solutions Empowering Citizens” Booth
At the joint booth shared with ASCEND, BEST-Storage, BuildON, ECHO, FEDECOM, HYSTORE, InterPED, NEUTRALPATH, oPEN Lab, and ThumbsUp, HARMONISE showcased how digitally enabled energy optimisation and district-level orchestration can empower cities and citizens on the path to climate neutrality.
Key features of the booth included:
- Interoperable digital tools for energy optimisation
- Hands-on demonstrations of flexibility and storage solutions
- Retrofitting and governance frameworks for PED replication
- Citizen engagement approaches to accelerate local action
- A collective Innovation Map, where all eleven projects displayed their pilot sites — illustrating the growing ecosystem of real-world PED, energy-flexibility, and climate-neutrality demonstrations across Europe.
The booth became a lively meeting point for policymakers, utilities, researchers, and municipalities eager to understand how citizen-centred solutions can scale across diverse urban contexts.
Dr. Christos Korkas Showcases HARMONISE Vision on the Main Stage
Representing the HARMONISE consortium, Dr. Christos Korkas (CERTH) joined the panel “Energy Communities & Positive Energy Districts”, offering an insightful presentation on:
Optimised Energy Management for Positive Energy Districts (PEDs)
Based on his ENLIT presentation, Dr. Korkas highlighted:
- What makes a PED net-positive
- How smart coordination of buildings, renewable generation, storage, and EV charging can improve renewable self-use by 20–40%
- Why interoperability, forecasting accuracy, and scalable control systems are essential to coordinate complex district-level environments
- The transitions from building-focused optimisation to autonomous, district-level orchestration
- Future-ready trends: PED clusters, vehicle-to-grid integration, and AI-driven decision support for operators and citizens
During the roundtable, Korkas emphasised that “reliable real-time energy management demands interoperable systems above all else”, a message that strongly resonated with challenges faced across the EU PED landscape.
He was joined by Gorka Naveran Lanz (FEDECOM, Veolia), Lorena Sánchez Relaño (InterPED, R2M), Veronica Cerna (ASCEND, Twentycomms), and Rubén García Pajares (NEUTRALPATH, CARTIF), under the moderation of Silvia Ielmini (ICONS).
Cross-Project Collaboration: A Growing European PED Network
ENLIT enabled unprecedented collaboration between European PED and energy-flexibility projects.
Through shared booth activities, informal discussions, and cross-project attendance, HARMONISE strengthened ties with sister initiatives working on:
- District-scale digital twins
- Flexibility markets
- Innovations in storage and sector coupling
- Engagement strategies designed to place citizens at the heart of the energy transition
The week clearly demonstrated that the emerging PED ecosystem is not a collection of isolated pilots — it is an interconnected network of aligned European demonstrations, collectively accelerating decarbonisation.
Reflections: A Social and Technological Transformation
ENLIT Bilbao underscored a powerful truth:
Energy transition is not only about technology, it is fundamentally about people.
Across sessions, booths, and workshops, a shared message grew stronger:
Positive Energy Districts succeed when citizens are InformED, ENGAGED and EMPOWERED.
For HARMONISE, this aligns perfectly with our mission to enable:
- smarter, more interoperable district-level control,
- greater flexibility and comfort for users,
- and transparent, citizen-ready digital tools supporting the transition to climate-neutral cities.
Thank You for Joining Us in Bilbao
To everyone who visited our booth, attended our sessions, or connected with us throughout the week — thank you. Your insights, questions, and collaboration make our mission stronger.
HARMONISE Energy Solutions looks forward to carrying forward the momentum gained at ENLIT as we continue deploying and validating our solutions across European cities.
Until next time — let’s keep harmonising Europe’s path toward climate-positive districts.
