What can six years of research into positive energy districts teach us? Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences shares 10 lessons from ATELIER.

Researchers, municipalities, businesses and knowledge institutions from across Europe launched an ambitious project in 2019: building positive energy districts that generate more renewable energy than they consume. Amsterdam and Bilbao became the testing grounds, with six other cities observing. In April 2026 the project was completed, after an extension of eighteen months due to covid, the energy crisis and construction delays. The results are impressive: a unique energy system in Amsterdam, a leading heat network in Bilbao, six cities with a European climate label, and a wealth of knowledge for the next generation of energy-positive districts.

The ten key insights:

1. An energy-positive district is not a destination, but a compass

Did the Amsterdam district Buiksloterham achieve a fully energy-positive balance, as hoped at the start of the project? The honest answer is: no. ‘Setting up the waste-recovery station was delayed, for instance, due to technical problems and limited local resources, and changes in the market and grid congestion made it difficult to build a solid business case for battery storage,’ Shafqat explains. Expanding with additional renewable energy sources proved tricky, partly due to lengthy permit procedures. But much did succeed. A unique energy community emerged with a shared battery, heat pumps, thermal storage, solar panels and a smart energy management system, all connected via a single micro grid connection.

'We came to understand that an energy-positive district is not so much an endpoint, but a direction you move in. You try things out, keep what works and let go of what doesn't. That way you keep making progress. That alone is extraordinarily valuable for the energy transition,' says Heller. An energy-positive district works best as a strategic transition framework, focused on accelerating CO2 reduction, exposing structural barriers and strengthening municipal implementation capacity, the researchers emphasize in their final evaluation.

2. Much more than technical innovation alone

Amsterdam operated simultaneously across three energy markets - known as value stacking - and this offers a promising foundation for a business case for flexible assets while helping with grid congestion issues. ‘We had heat pumps, heat and cold storage in the ground, solar panels and a smart energy management system steering these energy sources,’ Shafqat explains. The technology ultimately proved to be the least complex element of the whole. ‘Innovation was also needed in regulation, governance, business models and financing. Without those four, scaling up simply doesn’t work.’

3. Regulation is lagging too far behind

In Amsterdam, obtaining the required qualification for FCR market use of the battery took considerably longer than expected. In Bilbao, a clear legal framework for heat networks was missing for a long time. In Spain, residents were initially not even permitted to exchange energy with one another. ‘Regulation evolves slowly, while projects operate on a much shorter timeline,’ says Heller. ‘That tension was felt throughout the entire project. If you want to innovate, regulation needs to move with you.’ ‘In Amsterdam, we partly address this problem through the experimental regulation for Republica. Without this specific regulation, scaling up would have been difficult.’ This means grid operators, regulators and other network partners are best involved from the very start of the process, not only once the technology is already in place. ‘Create space for experiments and incorporate research insights directly into policy; through a project like ATELIER, you test what is technically and organisationally possible. It is precisely the friction with existing regulations that reveals where opportunities lie for sharpening policy,’ says Heller.

4. Grid congestion is the new reality

Where the project initially revolved around becoming energy-positive, the emphasis gradually shifted towards a different urgent problem: overloading of the electricity grid. The battery in Buiksloterham was deployed to keep the district within grid capacity while simultaneously delivering services to the grid. ‘Our electricity grid is filling up, but we have now gained concrete experience with solutions that work,’ says Shafqat. The battery is now operating profitably: since September 2025, revenues from the energy market have more than covered the transport costs. ‘The battery earns simultaneously across three markets – that’s what value-stacking means,’ Shafqat explains. Through FCR (Frequency Containment Reserve), the battery helps to keep the European electricity grid stable and receives payment for this. It also steps in when there is more or less power on the grid than planned. And through the day-ahead market, the battery buys electricity when prices are low and sells it when prices are high. The demo projects Republica and Poppies showed how battery storage, energy management systems, low-temperature heating and electric mobility can work together in situations of grid congestion.

5. Residents primarily want a lower energy bill

The project had high ambitions for citizen participation, with residents as active, engaged energy suppliers within a local energy community. The reality was more nuanced. The people who came to live in Buiksloterham chose primarily for the home, not for the energy concept. ‘There is a big difference between a bottom-up cooperative that people build themselves, and a system that people end up in because they happened to buy a home there,’ says Heller. ‘You shouldn’t expect too much from them either.’ What did strongly motivate residents, however, was a lower energy bill, especially during the energy crisis of 2022.

6. Professional management is the key to scaling

For the energy community in Republica (a mixed use development), a governance structure with seven voting rights categories was developed, to prevent any single party from calling the shots. This structure did make active participation complex for individual residents. 'The administrative burden involved can really only be carried by professionals,' says Shafqat. The lesson to draw from this: energy communities are most powerful when operations are professionally organized, with shared financial interests as the binding force.

7. Government as a crucial long-term partner

While Amsterdam was experimenting with market flexibility, Bilbao was building a heating and cooling network in the Zorrotzaurre district, based on geothermal energy. The business case is built on energy performance contracts. Buildings were renovated and fitted with heating and cooling networks. Both project partners and building owners benefited from the resulting reduction in energy costs. The municipality is involved as a long-term partner, which makes the model more robust than market-dependent alternatives. The approach in Bilbao is now considered one of the most transferable results of the entire project. ‘This teaches us that the government as a long-term partner is often needed in a market where prices fluctuate rapidly and unpredictably,’ says Heller. ‘This involvement also makes it easier to finance initiatives at lower cost, for example through guarantees.’

8. Partner cities learned more than expected

The six fellow or follower cities - from Bratislava to Matosinhos (Portugal) - used the project to strengthen their own capacity, each in their own way. Bratislava, for instance, established a completely new climate department based on the knowledge gained. Budapest integrated the PED methodology into its spatial planning procedures and stepped directly into a European follow-up project. Riga now participates in six additional other European projects through the ATELIER network, all building on the ATELIER approach and methodology. Matosinhos secured its own municipal funding to continue the neighbourhood-level collaboration platforms (Innovation Ateliers) established during the project. Six of the eight cities have since received the European label Climate-Neutral Cities. ‘A participant at once of the city meetings said: it's so good to be here, I thought only we had those problems,' Shafqat recalls. 'That realisation alone has value.' The value of collaboration, knowledge exchange with partner cities lay not so much in adopting technical solutions, but above all in the capacity building, networking and institutional readiness it brought about.

9. A university of applied sciences fulfils its own role in such a consortium

In a consortium of 30 parties, collaboration requires deliberate choices about who does what. AUAS was involved in monitoring, the replication strategy and the Innovation ATELIERs: platforms where municipalities, industry and researchers discuss obstacles on the path to an energy-positive district. 'A university of applied sciences can occupy a more neutral position than a company or municipality,' says Heller. 'That makes it possible to translate knowledge to a broad professional field and to build bridges.' Within AUAS as well, people with different technical, social and economic backgrounds had to develop a shared language for this project. It yielded valuable outcomes for education: an interdisciplinary minor on positive energy districts and a MOOC with three courses for students and professionals alike. The learning materials are freely accessible via pedlearning.eu, and the Buiksloterham district itself served as a ‘living learning lab’ for students.

10. Being honest about what doesn't work: that works

The project team communicated openly about the challenges encountered along the way: the battery that couldn't be brought into operation, process innovations that were discontinued, and energy communities that ran into obstructive regulation. That honesty proves its worth, Shafqat emphasises: 'Our benchmarks and insights are feeding through into European and national policy.' In Buiksloterham, the solar panels, heat pumps and battery stand as tangible proof of what is possible. And in cities across Europe, from Bratislava to Bilbao, people and institutions are better equipped than ever to build on what was developed in ATELIER. The AUAS project team is already working with the municipality of Amstelveen on a (smaller) follow-up project around positive energy districts.