Does Tivoli Greencity mean anything to you? It is a sustainable neighborhood mixing housing and economic activities in Laeken. The project is ambitious and aims to solve environmental issues - including reducing energy consumption and boosting green energy production - as well as to raise citizen awareness and participation. 

Tivoli constantly innovates and develops responsible initiatives that would solve such issues within the neighborhood.

Photovoltaic panels on the roofs, cogeneration, electric vehicle charging stations, etc. The neighborhood already has many useful assets for its coming integration into an energy community. Besides, there are strong complementarities between the energy consumption profiles of the nearby Greenbizz SMEs and Tivoli's residents: While the former consume more during daytime and week days, the latter make most of their consumption in the evenings and on weekends. 

Such complementarities is the core principle of an energy community and give meaning to extend our Greenbizz energy community to Tivoli :

The extension of our Energy Community would allow us to make the most of the different participants' consumption patterns (SMEs, Inhabitants, Schools, ...) in order to offer everyone an optimized use of local and green energy! 

A few weeks ago we decided to meet with some Tivoli's residents who are particularly concerned about using less and better energy. The objective was to prepare the extension of our energy community and to understand their expectations. However, being already aware of one's energy impact does not mean being already convinced by energy communities. Jean-Baptiste made it clear right from the start saying: "I don't understand what are my interests in joining an energy community!

Through gamification and an interactive presentation, we made a ping pong of questions & answers between us and the inhabitants of Tivoli, to answer these questions we often get: 

• Who is WeSmart and what is our role in the energy community?
• What is a local and renewable energy community and how does it work?
• What are the benefits (economic, social, environmental) of being part of such a community?
• How can such a community be implemented in practice? 

 After 1 hour of discussion, we received very positive feedback: "I really understood what an energy community is all about, and there are plenty of benefits! " said Patrick.

Not only did we raise awareness among the inhabitants, but we also made them want to get involved and involve others around them. 

Mission accomplished!

Having involved inhabitants is a precious help and will allow us to facilitate the extension of our energy community to Tivoli in 2021. Stay tuned!

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