1. Municipality of Kozani
2. ZEUS Helios Electricity Company
3. AUTH
4. EYATH
5. Solar-Institut Jülich, FH Aachen University of Applied Sciences
6. ABB SA Greece
7. Kraftanlagen Energies & Services
8. DEYAK
9. DIADYMA
10. Ergocell
11. CERTH

The NEUTRON pilot aims to develop the building’s sector climate neutrality transition pathways involving all actors representing the quadruple helix's whole range, implementing a portfolio approach of energy and digital technologies, policies, social innovations, and adaptation projects to promote societal resilience and produce an inclusive green and digital transformation. The whole transformation of the electricity, heating and cooling sector plays an essential role in green transition, and it is necessary to support the further application of efficient and renewable technologies to make the sector fit to meet NZC’s Pilot Cities Programme challenges while accelerating climate neutrality.

Looking into the EU DHs landscape, high penetration of DHs is found in several European countries as a result of cold climate. An example is Kozani (GR) an EU Mission City, a Green City Accord and Covenant of Mayors member, and which is among those areas in the EU where lignite extraction mining activities and the generation of electricity from lignite-fired power plants predominate the region's economic profile for over 50 years. Kozani’s DHs provides heat to about 80% of the population and national Government recognize DHs as a key element to achieve climate targets by 2030. Overall, the advantages of centralized heat production in urban areas are increasingly recognized with new DHs built all over the EU. Even though there is a consensus on the potential to exploit flexibility from DHs, the quantification of this potential is challenging due to the diversity of DHs and energy markets across countries. As a result, a research and technology gap emerge from the linkage between the geographical scope of DHs and the energy market, and the potential of using innovative technological solutions with inclusive business models, should be assessed.

Under the NEUTRON pilot, the participating partners develop and showcase the methodology to support the transition via the definition of existing innovative technologies, such as the Green Heat Module (GHM); they implement this methodology in sectoral pilots, including energy production from RES and energyfrom-waste (EfW), Digital Twins, Budling Information Modeling, and accelerate a just transition while focus on energy decarbonization of district heating, smart buildings, just transition, and circular economy in building sector, as well as to any other economic activity, including industry and agriculture.

DIADYMA, as one of the main partners of the project, is responsible for the analysis of data on waste management and its utilization for the production of biogas in the context of a sustainable solution proposed in the project. Also, the economic evaluation of the utilization of solid waste, the evaluation of the effects and the proposal of strategy and policies of the pilot system proposed in the project are among its responsibilitie. DIADYMA also supports the Municipality of Kozani in managing information and maintaining the quality of project deliverables.