What if the condominium buildings of the Bartók District could power not only their residents, but also the cafés, cultural hubs, community spaces and small businesses on their ground floors — using solar energy produced directly on their rooftops? This is the core mission of the Bartók District as one of the Driving Urban Transitions Partnership (DUT) funded Co-PED project’s eight European urban living labs: to test how a neighbourhood-level energy community can work in a dense city, linking homes with the vibrant cultural and community life at street level.

Our first community meeting, held on 29 October at KÉK – Contemporary Architecture Centre, opened this conversation to residents, building representatives and local actors who want to shape the district’s energy future.

Four perspectives on building a community-based energy model

The evening featured four speakers, each bringing a different layer of expertise:

• Szalkai-Lőrincz Ágnes (MTVSZ / Közösségi Energia Szolgáltató) gave a clear and reality-based overview of what it means to start an energy community in today’s still “amoeba-state” Hungarian legal environment. She explained which organisational forms are viable for communities, why financing usually needs to come from within the membership, and how the different apartment-building sharing models currently work in practice — including why some of them are still limited. She also spoke honestly about the typical obstacles in dense districts like Bartók: small and fragmented roof surfaces, shading, outdated electrical systems, and the need to assess every building carefully before making promises. Ági highlighted tools such as the solar map for first screening, explained why going fully off-grid is not realistic, and gave a general sense of installation costs without overpromising. She closed by encouraging residents to think in steps: start with small community actions, build trust and commitment, and focus on those buildings or ground-floor users where the technical and financial conditions genuinely make an energy community achievable.

• Rozgonyi-Kulcsár Viktória (Jurányi Ház) shared how the Jurányi cultural hub is integrating solar energy and what it means for long-term sustainability in a cultural institution. The Jurányi House energy community was established very recently, bringing together the cultural centre, several of its tenant organisations and the building’s operator under one shared rooftop PV system. Supported by the Közösségi Energia Szolgáltató, the community now jointly benefits from locally produced clean energy, transparent allocation of consumption, and lower operational costs — offering a fresh, real-world example of how cultural hubs in dense urban areas can meaningfully participate in and anchor community energy models.

• Polyák Levente (Eutropian/Cooperative City / Co-PED) presented the goals of the Co-PED project, which aims to create community-based Positive Energy Districts and to organise energy communities around cultural venues. He explained that the project seeks local buildings and individuals in the Bartók District—apartment houses, cultural spaces, catering facilities, residents and joint representatives—to participate in forming an energy community. Levente also shared examples of Co-PED’s urban living labs from Innsbruck, South Tyrol, Saint-Denis and Maastricht, where cultural institutions are becoming drivers of local cooperation and energy production. He highlighted that Co-PED provides participating buildings with professional and organisational assistance, networking support, and a limited amount of solar panels to help them start developing their own energy community.

• Kőrösi Kíra (KÉK / Co-PED partner) presented KÉK’s perspective as a Co-PED partner and explained that the organisation is not only supporting community engagement in the district, but is also interested in developing its own building as one of the Bartók District prototypes. She highlighted that KÉK’s long-standing experience with neighbourhood-based projects—such as Budapest100, Urban Walks and Inclusive City—gives them a strong foundation for coordinating between residents, cultural actors and businesses. 

Together, they mapped out what it takes for a condominium and its ground-floor tenants to cooperate on local energy production — and how this synergy can benefit both.

Key questions raised during the discussion

Participants explored several central questions for the Bartók District:

• Which rooftops are technically suitable for PV in such a dense area?

• How can energy be shared fairly between households and ground-floor cultural or commercial users?

• Which organisational model (cooperative, association, or hybrid) best supports local investment and long-term trust?

• What is the first step for buildings that want to be evaluated or join a future community energy scheme?

Across all speakers, a common point emerged: community energy is both a technical and deeply social process — requiring steady dialogue, involvement, and collective decision-making before installations can happen.

What happens next?

The Co-PED partners in Hungary — KÉK and Cooperative City — will continue surveying potential condominium buildings, identifying ground-floor cultural hubs and businesses that could join, and shaping several prototype cases where shared energy models can be tested locally. Residents and building representatives are invited to join this work, contribute ideas, at our events or via co-ped.eu/bartok-negyed.

With collaboration between buildings, cultural spaces and local organisations, the Bartók District can become a leading example of how neighbourhoods can produce, share, and reinvest their own clean energy — building a greener, more resilient and more connected Újbuda.