NRGCOM celebrates its results at the Closing Conference in Pinkafeld, Austria

The NRGCOM project brought its journey to a close with a two-day Closing Conference and Project Partner Meeting hosted at Hochschule Burgenland in Pinkafeld, Austria. The event gathered partners and experts from across the Danube Region to present the project's final results, share best practices and reflect on how renewable energy communities (RECs) can be created and sustained.

Opening the conference, Horst Schindler of the Danube Region Programme Managing Authority/Joint Secretariat congratulated the consortium on the successful completion of the project, highlighting its strong transnational cooperation and the practical, policy-relevant nature of its outputs. Zoltán Haász, Managing Director of lead partner STRIA, underlined how RECs can strengthen local energy security and citizen participation in the energy transition.

Consortium manager Réka Zulauf (STRIA) then summarised NRGCOM in figures: a 30-month implementation period delivering 3 specific objectives, 16 activities, 17 deliverables and 8 outputs, carried out by 13 partners from 12 countries with the support of 14 associated strategic partners. She recalled that the consortium mobilised more than 250 REC Ambassadors, organised over 40 awareness-raising events and 31 professional trainings, and that the quality of its work was recognised by the Programme through the award of the Danube Region Flagship Certificate.

The final results under each specific objective were presented by KSSENA, STRIA, DIT and JAIP, covering the legal and strategic framework, the awareness-raising and engagement toolkit, the mentoring and technology pilots, the interactive good-practice map and the project's communication achievements — 925 logged communication activities across 12 countries.

The afternoon showcased best-practice examples from members of the Energy Community Expert Network and NRGCOM Ambassadors, including presentations from Montenegro, Germany, the Czech Republic (ENERKOM Růže, presented by JAIP), Romania and Austria. The day concluded with a plenary discussion on the project's White Paper and a joint networking dinner held together with the E-NOVA conference.

On the second day, partners reviewed the final SO3 deliverables and outputs and confirmed the arrangements for the orderly closure of the project — ensuring that NRGCOM's results remain available and usable well beyond its official end date.