The pilot project was launched in March ­—˜2019 by a consor†tium composed of the Azienda Elettrica di Massa†gno (AEMž), SUPSI (Energy Systems Sector of the Institute of Applied Sustainability to the Built En†vironment and Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligencež) and Swiss companies Optimatik, Hive Power and Landis+Gyr, in collaboration with the Municipality of Capriasca, and enjoys the support of the Swiss Federal Office of Energy, the Canton†al Renewable Energy Fund (FERž) and the Ente Re†gionale per lo Sviluppo del Luganese (ERSLž).

The project aims to promote an experimental self†consumption energy community called “Lu†gaggia Innovation Community”, which connects the Lugaggia kindergarten with 18 neighbour†ing houses and 5 photovoltaic plants (with a total power of 64kWpž). The exchange of energy within the community complies with existing laws gov†erning self†consumption communities.

The objective is to ensure that the electricity pro†duced in the residential neighborhood is consumed within it as much as possible, i.e. that the model of clustering is optimized for own consumption (CPRž).
This is achieved through two technological devic†es provided by the Swiss companies Optimatik and Hive Power: a 60kWh shared battery, which stores surplus energy rather than feeding it into the grid, and a supply†demand management system based on artificial intelligence, which should benefit pro†ducers and consumers (also financiallyž). The testing phase ended in December 2021.