Beyond DECA: From Shared Challenges to Shared Power – A Lasting Legacy for Community Energy

The DECA project has reached its conclusion, but its most important contribution is only beginning - empowering communities across the Danube Region to take ownership of their energy future. With practical tools, tested approaches, stronger partnerships and a shared strategy for long-term cooperation, DECA leaves behind more than project results. It lays the foundations for a lasting community energy ecosystem.

The energy transition is not only a technological challenge. It is also social, organisational, legal and financial. Across the Danube Region, communities face barriers that prevent them from turning renewable energy ambitions into concrete initiatives. The Danube Energy Communities Accelerator (DECA) project, co-funded by the Interreg Danube Region Programme, addressed these challenges by bringing together stakeholders from nine countries to develop practical solutions that can continue supporting community energy initiatives well beyond the project's lifetime.

The DECA legacy: Practical resources ready for use

One of DECA's most important achievements is what it leaves behind: a collection of practical, tested, transferable resources that citizens, community organisations, municipalities, energy agencies, and other stakeholders can use to initiate, support and grow community energy projects.

These resources provide a practical pathway from initial interest and capacity building to project preparation and investment and include:

1. Community Energy Training Programme
Training and learning materials that strengthen the knowledge, skills and organisational capacity needed to establish and manage energy communities.

2. Toolkit for Community Energy Projects
Practical guidance and methodologies for identifying, preparing and advancing community energy projects, helping transform local opportunities into viable initiatives.

3. Danube Community Energy Acceleration Strategy
A shared strategic framework with recommendations for improving enabling conditions, strengthening support structures and accelerating community energy development across the region.

4. Community Energy Hub Models and Business and Investment Plans
Organisational and planning approaches supporting continued advisory services, cooperation and the development of future community energy investments.

Explore and reuse DECA's tools, publications and project results:
https://interreg-danube.eu/projects/deca/library

These resources are building blocks for future initiatives, allowing organisations across and beyond the Danube Region to benefit from DECA's experience, adapt proven approaches and accelerate their own community energy development.

From ambition to action: DECA's achievements

DECA developed a practical learning pathway, moving from awareness and capacity building towards project development and investment. Through cooperation among nine countries, solutions were jointly developed, tested locally and improved through stakeholder feedback.

The numbers behind DECA's achievements:

• 44 training sessions, engaging 630 participants and strengthening practical skills for developing community energy initiatives.

• 60 in-person events and 25 online events, involving more than 2,000 attendees in knowledge exchange, stakeholder engagement and cooperation.

• 10 business and investment plans developed to support the advancement of community energy projects towards implementation.

• 9 community energy hub models developed to support continued capacity building, advisory support and local cooperation.

• 1 transnational Community Energy Acceleration Strategy, providing a shared framework for strengthening the community energy ecosystem across the Danube Region.

The project ends, but the energy remains, and the renewables transition grows

DECA's legacy goes beyond renewable energy generation. It is about strengthening local ownership, improving energy security, keeping economic value within communities and giving citizens a meaningful role in shaping a fairer and more resilient energy future.

The true measure of DECA's success will be in the communities that use its tools, the partnerships that continue to grow, and the renewable energy projects that move from ideas to implementation.

The future of energy will not be built by grids and technologies alone. It will primarily be built by communities that are connected, supported, confident and ready to act.