LEC Commons

LEC Commons is an open-source Swiss platform that helps municipalities, cooperatives and citizens co-design Local Energy Communities (LEC). Combining territorial mapping, energy and economic simulations, and participatory visualisation tools, it supports collective decision-making during the feasibility phase. The project lays the foundation for a future open ecosystem supporting the creation and operation of energy communities.

HES-SO Valais Wallis

Prof Dr Stéphane Genoud

stephane.genoud@hevs.ch

Sierre

Switzerland has established a favourable regulatory framework for Local Energy Communities (LEC), yet their deployment remains limited. While technical solutions for energy sharing already exist, the creation of an energy community still requires complex coordination between municipalities, citizens, building owners, utilities and other local stakeholders. Today, the main challenge is not only technical. Local actors often lack the tools and processes needed to collectively understand opportunities, evaluate alternatives and build a shared vision of a future energy community. Existing solutions are generally designed for energy professionals and focus on technical operation once a community has already been established. Few tools support the earlier stages where collective decisions, governance models and local engagement are formed. As a result, many potentially viable projects never move beyond the discussion phase. The energy transition therefore faces a broader structural barrier: the absence of accessible and transparent mechanisms that enable local actors to collectively design, evaluate and organise community energy projects. Our hypothesis is that acLECerating the energy transition requires not only new energy infrastructures, but also new participatory planning tools that help communities transform technical opportunities into collective action.

Today, energy-related decisions are often made by a small group of experts, consultants or infrastructure operators. Citizens, building owners and local organisations are usually involved only once technical options have already been defined. Our ambition is to encourage a shift from expert-driven energy planning towards collaborative energy planning. We want local actors to actively participate in shaping future energy systems rather than simply reacting to predefined solutions. More specifically, we aim to change how municipalities, cooperatives and citizens identify opportunities for local energy communities, discuss energy investments and governance models, evaluate trade-offs between economic, environmental and social objectives and collectively decide how locally produced energy should be shared and managed. To support this shift, LEC Commons combines spatial analysis, energy simulations and interactive visualisation tools within participatory workshops. By making energy systems easier to understand, the platform enables non-specialist actors to engage in informed discussions and contribute to collective decision-making. The objective is not only to design better energy communities, but also to strengthen local capacity to organise, govern and manage the energy transition collectively.

The direct beneficiaries of LEC Commons are municipalities, citizen groups, housing cooperatives, local energy associations and facilitators involved in the development of Local Energy Communities (LEC). These actors often face significant barriers during the early stages of project development, including fragmented information, limited technical expertise and the difficulty of engaging diverse stakeholders in a shared decision-making process. LEC Commons aims to reduce these barriers by providing accessible planning tools, transparent visualisations and structured support for participatory co-design. Beyond individual projects, the initiative seeks to create a broader impact by establishing an open and reusable framework for community energy planning. The platform will be developed as open-source software and accompanied by methodologies that can be adapted by other municipalities, regions, cooperatives and research organisations. By lowering the cost and complexity of the feasibility phase, the project can help acLECerate the emergence of Local Energy Communities across Switzerland. It also contributes to wider societal objectives including energy democracy, local participation, digital sovereignty and the development of interoperable tools for the energy transition. In the longer term, LEC Commons is intended to become the first building block of a broader open ecosystem supporting the creation, governance and operation of Local Energy Communities. The booster project focuses on feasibility and co-design, while future developments may address community management, energy sharing mechanisms, billing and flexibility management.

The idea builds on several years of practical experience acquired through GROUP-IT and multiple local energy projects conducted in collaboration with municipalities, cooperatives and citizen groups in Switzerland. Over the past years, the project team has carried out numerous preliminary feasibility studies for Local Energy Communities, including territorial mapping, photovoltaic potential assessments, economic simulations and stakeholder workshops. These activities have provided valuable insights into both the technical and social challenges associated with community energy development. A recurring observation has been that many stakeholders struggle to understand the implications of different energy community configurations. Technical studies are often difficult to communicate, while collective discussions tend to focus on assumptions rather than shared evidence. We also observed that municipalities frequently lack simple and transparent tools to compare scenarios and facilitate dialogue between citizens, building owners and local organisations. Several elements that will be integrated into LEC Commons have already been tested individually, including mapping tools, energy simulations, economic assessments and participatory workshop formats. However, these components currently exist as separate tools and methodologies. In May 2026, a dedicated workshop was organised with researchers, software architects, energy specialists, municipalities and implementation partners to identify the key functionalities of a future open-source platform. One of the main conclusions was that the feasibility and co-design phase remains largely underserved despite being critical to the success of Local Energy Communities. The booster project therefore aims not to test the existence of the problem, but to validate whether these previously tested components can be integrated into a coherent, user-friendly and scalable platform that supports collective decision-making.

During the booster, we aim to develop and test the first operational prototype of LEC Commons, focusing specifically on the feasibility and co-design phase of Local Energy Communities. The prototype will integrate several functionalities that are currently used separately, including automated territorial mapping, photovoltaic and energy potential assessment, simplified economic simulations, scenario comparison tools and interactive visualisations designed for participatory workshops. The objective is not to develop a complete operational platform, but to create a first demonstrator capable of supporting collective discussions and early-stage decision-making. The most important assumption we want to test is that accessible visualisation and simulation tools can help non-specialist actors meaningfully participate in the design of Local Energy Communities. We want to understand whether citizens, municipalities and local organisations are able to use such tools to explore alternatives, discuss trade-offs and build a shared understanding of potential projects. A second key assumption is that an open-source approach can provide sufficient value to local actors compared with traditional consulting-based approaches during the feasibility phase. Finally, we want to determine whether combining technical analysis and participatory co-design within a single platform can reduce the time, cost and complexity associated with the creation of Local Energy Communities. The booster will therefore serve both as a technology demonstrator and as a real-world experiment on how collaborative planning tools can support the development of community energy projects.

Our main learning goal is to determine whether participatory planning tools can effectively support the creation of Local Energy Communities and generate sufficient value for local actors to change their current practices. The core hypothesis of the project is that municipalities, cooperatives and citizen groups are willing to invest time in a collaborative design process if they are provided with accessible visualisations, transparent simulations and a shared platform for discussion. During the booster, we will evaluate the perceived usefulness of the platform, the quality of discussions supported by the tool, stakeholder engagement during co-design workshops and the willingness of participants to use such an approach in future projects. A key assumption would be challenged if fewer than 50% of pilot participants indicate that the platform provides more value than conventional feasibility studies or consulting-based approaches during the early stages of a Local Energy Community project. Similarly, if participants are unable to use the platform to identify, compare and discuss alternative scenarios without significant expert intervention, we would need to reconsider our assumptions regarding the accessibility of the proposed approach. In either case, we would revisit the value proposition, the level of technical complexity and the role of facilitation within the platform. This would help us determine whether the project should evolve towards a different balance between digital tools, expert support and participatory processes.

Current test partners include HES-SO Valais-Wallis (Exergy Management Lab), Fondation GROUP-IT (currently being established), SESAMES SA, the municipalities of Mont-sur-Lausanne, Bussigny, Denges, Echandens, Echichens, Lonay, Lully, Lussy-sur-Morges, Morges, Préverenges, Saint-Prex and Tolochenaz, all of which are involved in local energy transition initiatives and have already been engaged through previous discussions or collaborative activities related to Local Energy Communities and collective energy planning. Energy cooperatives and implementation partners include Enessert (Essertines-sur-Rolle) and Newatts (Ecublens), both of which have expressed strong interest in participating in the project and contributing to the testing and validation of the proposed approach. Discussions with these organisations are already at an advanced stage. Several partners have indicated their willingness to participate in pilot workshops, provide feedback on the prototype and contribute real-world use cases for testing the platform. SESAMES SA contributes expertise in energy systems modelling, energy economics and decision-support methodologies for local energy planning. Its experience in feasibility studies and territorial energy analyses will help ensure that the platform responds to both scientific and operational needs. The project is complementary to a parallel initiative led by Enessert and the University of Lausanne, which focuses on user engagement and data visualisation within operational Local Energy Communities. While LEC Commons focuses on the feasibility and co-design phase, the Enessert initiative explores how operational data can support long-term participation and engagement once a community is established. In addition, a technical working group involving researchers, software architects, energy specialists and implementation partners was established in May 2026 to define the first development priorities and ensure that the platform responds to real operational need

We hope to obtain methodological feedback, access to additional municipalities and pilot territories, expertise in participatory facilitation, connections with public actors and support for testing and dissemination. We are also interested in connecting with urban planning experts, digital participation specialists and organisations working on open urban infrastructures. Beyond the immediate objectives of the booster, we hope to validate the foundations of a broader open-source ecosystem for Local Energy Communities. The booster will allow us to test the feasibility, desirability and practical value of the co-design and feasibility modules under real-world conditions. The results and lessons learned from this project are expected to support the preparation of a future Innosuisse proposal currently under discussion. This follow-up project would focus on the subsequent stages of the platform, including community management, energy allocation mechanisms, billing functionalities and real-time flexibility management. The booster therefore represents both a stand-alone innovation project and a stepping stone towards a larger collaborative initiative supporting the long-term development of Local Energy Communities in Switzerland.

The project brings together complementary expertise in energy economics, local energy systems, territorial energy planning, software architecture, participatory facilitation and the practical implementation of Local Energy Communities. HES-SO Valais-Wallis (Exergy Management Lab) leads the project and contributes expertise in energy economics, energy system modelling, territorial energy planning, participatory processes and project coordination. The team has extensive experience supporting municipalities and energy transition projects throughout Switzerland. SESAMES SA contributes expertise in feasibility studies, territorial energy planning, decision-support methodologies and the techno-economic assessment of local energy systems. Its experience in supporting public authorities and utilities will help ensure the scientific and operational relevance of the platform. Fondation GROUP-IT contributes practical experience in participatory energy projects, collective procurement initiatives and collaboration with municipalities. GROUP-IT also provides access to pilot territories and supports stakeholder engagement activities. Enessert contributes operational experience in the creation and management of Local Energy Communities, including governance, community engagement and practical deployment challenges. The cooperative also provides access to real-world use cases and pilot communities. Newatts contributes expertise in software development, data management, optimisation algorithms, digital energy services and the integration of distributed energy resources. Newatts will support the technical design and development of the platform. Together, the consortium combines scientific expertise, software development capabilities, operational experience and direct access to municipalities, cooperatives and citizens. This combination ensures that CEL Commons addresses both the technical and social dimensions required for the successful development of Local Energy Communities.

While the consortium already brings together expertise in energy systems, energy economics, software development, territorial planning and Local Energy Communities, several complementary competencies would significantly strengthen the project. We are particularly looking for expertise in Participatory governance and collective decision-making processes, Citizen engagement methodologies and workshop facilitation, UX/UI design for collaborative planning and decision-support tools, Data visualisation techniques for non-specialist audiences, Open-source community building and governance models, Legal and regulatory aspects related to Local Energy Communities and energy sharing frameworks. We are especially interested in experts who have experience translating complex technical systems into tools and processes that can be effectively used by municipalities, citizen groups and local organisations. Because the project sits at the intersection of energy systems, digital tools and social innovation, we believe that expertise from urban governance, behavioural sciences and participatory design will be particularly valuable during the booster phase.