Energy Communities and Green Energy Transition
A two-day hackathon to design solutions that help energy communities succeed in Portugal and across Europe’s Widening countries. The winning team will present their proposal at the European Final.
Iscte – University Institute of Lisbon invites you on a journey across Europe, connecting parallel hackathons organised in Croatia, Cyprus, North Macedonia, Portugal, Romania, and Ukraine, working on clean energy solutions based on Energy Communities.
They are the European Union’s tool that urges citizens to act collectively on energy. Energy communities let citizens drive the transition locally and benefit directly: better energy efficiency, lower bills, fewer energy poverty effects and more local green jobs.
Europe's green and digital transition needs a lot more trained experts, and it needs them fast. Universities are where those experts are made, but many institutions, especially in Widening countries (EU regions that have historically received less R&I funding), struggle to restructure fast enough to keep up. INITIATE exists to close that gap: it's a 42-month, EU-funded project helping higher education institutions redesign themselves – their departments, their partnerships, their researcher career paths – so they can do more, better-connected, higher-impact research and innovation, particularly in the energy transition.
The INITIATE hackathon is an initiative for university students and early-stage startups to help energy communities take root in widening countries. It is a two-phase event, with local hackathons lighting up Europe and local winners competing against each other at INITIATE’s final event.
The local hackathons build green energy transition scenarios for Widening countries, with energy communities as the vehicle for decarbonising their energy systems. Each local hackathon may choose either the socioeconomic or the technical track. Whichever track participants compete in, their solution must hold up on both the technical and the social side. Portugal enters this competition tackling the socioeconomic track.
Europe’s leading climate innovation community. Climate KIC supports the organisation of the hackathons and offers the overall winner a bootcamp experience.
The Portuguese Challenge
Energy Communities enable collective and citizen-driven energy actions to support the clean energy transition. They can be an effective means of re-structuring our energy systems, by empowering citizens to drive the energy transition locally and directly benefit from better energy efficiency, lower bills, reduced energy poverty and more local green job opportunities. According to the 10th State of the Energy Union report more than 8000 of such communities exist across the EU. However, they are not uniformly found; widening countries are not as advanced as other member states.
Organized by Iscte as part of the European INITIATE project, the event gives participants the opportunity to tackle real-world challenges related to the green energy transition, collaborate with experienced mentors, and present their innovative solutions to leading stakeholders in the energy sector.
Despite Portugal's significant renewable energy potential and the emergence of Energy Communities and collective self-consumption projects, challenges remain in scaling up these initiatives and ensuring their long-term viability, accessibility and social impact.
Develop innovative, practical, and scalable solutions that accelerate the development and adoption of Energy Communities in Portugal, enabling citizens, local authorities, businesses, and other stakeholders to collaborate in the energy transition.
Sustainable business models and financing mechanisms; Community governance frameworks and citizen engagement strategies; Partnerships and implementation roadmaps involving municipalities, universities, businesses, cooperatives and civil society.
University students at any level of study are eligible to participate. For undergraduate students, final-year status is preferred, as the Hackathon requires a certain level of academic knowledge and experience.
Full attendance at Stages 1 and 2 is mandatory, and teams must commit to participating in the Final Event (Stage 3) should they win the country’s competition [for details read the Rulebook]. The absence of any team member from a mandatory stage or event may result in the immediate disqualification of the entire team.
At least one team member must be fluent in English, as the winning team will be required to present its proposal in English at the Grand Final abroad. The local activities however may be conducted in Portuguese.
Pre-selection would be carried out, if necessary, by local organisers. Priority will be given to multidisciplinary teams.
The winning team will pitch in English to an international jury from the European energy innovation ecosystem, joined by INITIATE partners and the European Commission. Travel and accommodation expenses are covered by Iscte.
The grand-prize winning team is offered an immersive experience at Climate KIC in the Netherlands, as part of the ClimateLaunchpad bootcamp.
All participants will receive a Certificate of Participation and a FNAC/El Corte Inglês voucher.