On 6 November 2025, Klimaan hosted an Energy Café in the Otterbeek neighborhood in Mechelen as part of U2Demo’s Belgian pilot. The drop-in event offered social tenants a friendly, low-threshold space to talk about energy, solar power, and household bills, and to connect with U2Demo’s research on smarter local energy use.
Otterbeek already benefits from Klimaan’s community solar rollout: 1,795 panels on 197 roofs now supply the neighborhood with local electricity. Residents who use this solar power pay 10% below the social tariff, and the scheme avoids about 130 tonnes of CO₂ each year—roughly the annual absorption of 6,000 trees. The Energy Café offered a moment for neighbors to relate these neighborhood gains to their own home situation.
What the café focused on
The Energy Café worked like a walk-in support point, in an informal setting with coffee, tea, and something sweet on the table. Residents were encouraged to bring their annual energy statement—or their supplier portal login details if they had them—so the advice could be concrete and personal.
Klimaan staff answered practical questions about the local solar setup and day-to-day use: how self-consumption works, what residents see on their bills and apps, how much they’re saving, and what to do when something seems off with an inverter or installation.
For broader bill and contract concerns, Klimaan teamed up with SAAMO, a Flemish organization specialized in energy affordability. SAAMO experts reviewed bills side-by-side with residents, checked if people were still on the most advantageous contract, and helped untangle confusing items.
Finally, the café also shared a clear snapshot of the wider energy work in the neighborhood. Through easy visuals and short explanations, residents learned how projects like U2Demo and REINVENT fit into Otterbeek’s next steps, and how they can contribute.
Beyond technology: building energy confidence
One thing stood out in the conversations: having solar panels in the neighborhood doesn’t automatically mean people feel confident using or understanding the system. Questions about consumption, savings, and billing are still very real. That’s why small, practical community moments like the Energy Café matter — they help turn a technical project into something residents can actually navigate in daily life, and they strengthen participation in U2Demo’s local research.
Data for smarter local energy, with privacy protected
To better align local production and use, Klimaan collaborates with the local grid operator Fluvius to analyse electricity flows in Otterbeek. Detailed consumption data is used within the REINVENT research work to build anonymized usage profiles, which are then also made available for broader studies, including U2Demo. The profiles cover quarter-hourly consumption and injection, hourly solar production, and general indicators such as whether a home has solar panels or benefits from a social tariff. No names, addresses, or meter identifiers are included, so individual households cannot be identified.
These insights help researchers build models that support a stable local grid and explore future neighbourhood energy services.
Otterbeek continues as a living lab for fair energy sharing and resident-centred innovation—showing how local solar can be paired with real support to make the benefits understandable and accessible for everyone.
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