Proceedings of the Clima 2025—Rehva 15th HVAC World Congress—Decarbonized, Healthy and Energy Conscious Buildings in Future Climates

Renewable Energy Communities (RECs) are emerging as a key field of research to further increase the share of renewable-energy-based systems in energy production. Research on RECs may take advantage of knowledge and tools from various disci-plines such as Heating, Ventilation and Air-Conditioning (HVAC) in buildings, urban energy consumption profiles, renewable energy sources, Geographic Information Sys-tems (GIS), load balancing strategies, profitability analyses, electric system manage-ment, etc. This paper deals with the development of a software tool aimed at the evalu-ation of the balance and profitability of RECs. It is based on building energy simula-tion software EnergyPlus and calculates the outputs relevant for RECs. It enables re-searchers to perform energy and profitability analysis at various detail levels, starting from a volume-based approach up to the detailed definition of single apartments or buildings. For buildings lacking detailed information, it makes available data collected from acknowledged resources to determine building envelope characteristics and ener-gy consumption profiles depending on construction/renovation year, building’s in-tended use and other general information.