IL PROGETTO

L’ampia digitalizzazione dei dati, attraverso il web sociale e l’Internet of Things, ha accelerato l’evoluzione dei mercati digitali, portando la Commissione Europea a identificare la regolamentazione dell'innovazione nel settore dei trasporti come una priorità. La strategia dell'UE (COM (2020) 789) punta a una trasformazione verde e digitale dei trasporti, garantendo nel contempo la sicurezza dei diritti fondamentali e la stabilità energetica.

Il progetto di ricerca di interesse nazionale “S.O.S. MOBILITY - Smart and/Or Sustainable Mobility: when is smart mobility sustainable for consumers and SMEs?” mira a valutare la sostenibilità della mobilità elettrica e connessa per consumatori, cittadini e PMI, seguendo l'approccio incentrato sulla persona delineato dalla Commissione Europea. Il team di ricerca, composto da esperti giuridici, economici, ingegneri elettrici e informatici, analizzerà le condizioni necessarie per un’innovazione sostenibile nella mobilità privata, combinando competenze multidisciplinari.

L'analisi si concentrerà sui concetti di "mobilità smart", "sostenibilità" e "sharing economy", approfondendo le questioni giuridiche connesse alla protezione dei diritti fondamentali, come la sicurezza della fornitura energetica e il diritto alla libera circolazione. Inoltre, il progetto esplorerà il ruolo delle comunità energetiche rinnovabili, incluse nel Piano Nazionale di Ripresa e Resilienza (PNRR) italiano, come pilastro per la transizione energetica. Il risultato atteso è uno studio di fattibilità per lo sviluppo delle comunità energetiche, come condizione essenziale per un futuro di mobilità sostenibile e sicura.

Il progetto di ricerca è finanziato dall'Unione Europea - NextGenerationEU a valere sul Piano Nazionale di Ripresa e Resilienza (PNRR) – Missione 4 Istruzione e ricerca – Componente 2 Dalla ricerca all’impresa - Investimento 1.1, Avviso Prin 2022 indetto con DD N. 104 del 2/2/2022, codice proposta 20228E3T44_001 - CUP J53D23005210006.

RESULTS ACHIEVED

The EU Commission (COM (2020) 789) set forth the EU Strategy for the transport system to achieve its green and digital transformation and become more resilient to future crises. According to the European Commission vision, thorough innovation will shape the mobility in urban and rural areas, improving furthermore smart and electric vehicles.

However, the European Commission is also aware that the above-mentioned target will be achieved only “if the right conditions are put in place”. In this perspective, “European values, ethical standards, equality, data protection and privacy rules […] and cybersecurity will be treated with high priority”. Following the European Commission human-centred approach, this research project has analysed the sustainability of connected and electric mobility for consumers, citizens and SMEs.

The research team made the most of different expertise (legal, electrical engineering and computer science) and adopted a multidisciplinary approach to identify ‘the right conditions’ - from a legal and technical perspective – for the human-centred innovation of the future sustainable private mobility.

It should be emphasised that publicly funding research projects in this field -such as the S.O.S. Mobility Project - allows to maintain a fair balance between the interests of market operators and the protection of users’ rights. In fact, the current scientific literature has already properly addressed the beneficial effects of smart mobility and the condition necessary for its economic development, while it was still missing a comprehensive evaluation of the socio/legal conditions necessary to ensure the sustainability of this new form of mobility. The “S.O.S. Mobility” Project’s outputs has fostered the scientific debate from this particular point of view, also in light of its financial independence from market operators. At the same time the Project’s outputs have maintained a practical approach thanks to its multidisciplinary research team and various analysis performed on real case studies.

The project outcomes include the assessment of current legislation and policies against the risk that smart electric mobility, without proper legal frameworks, may threaten fundamental rights, including data protection, self-determination, freedom of movement and protection from wholly automated decisions. The analysis helps lawmakers govern the physical and digital infrastructure needed for SSMS implementation. It identifies actions and legal tools to empower users and SMEs and foster sustainable market development. It should generate recommendations to limit automotive platforms’ power, remove incentives for anti-competitive strategies and propose regulatory frameworks that preserve value creation while ensuring fair value sharing. State and local authorities may benefit from its best-practice collection. Finally, outputs may raise awareness among stakeholders of the social, economic and environmental impact of SSMS, support guidelines and fair standard contracts, and use the technical solutions studied to overcome implementation barriers.

Moreover, the Project has identified a legal, economic and technical model for the development of energy communities, which might solve the major concerns raised by the deployment on large scale of EVs and allow to achieve the targets fixed by the SSMS. The interdisciplinary and coordinated research can then have a relevant practical, social and economic impact.

From the engineering perspective on electrical power systems, the project focused on the design and development of a local smart electricity market where small consumers and prosumers can trade produced electricity and participate in the markets of auxiliary services of transmission or distribution system operators. This scheme is expected to facilitate the transition to a more sustainable private mobility. Therefore, the project deals with networked microgrids and communities that incorporate both renewable generation and parking lots equipped with a large number of bidirectional charging stations for EVs. The expected impact mainly refers to the energy saved by increasing the use of green energy through the improved scheduling of generation and storage units that follow the demand. This is also useful for system operators. In fact, the smoothing of the load pattern can postpone the need of enlarging and upgrading the electric power distribution infrastructure, reduce the system operation costs by exploiting the flexibilities provided by the increased availability of storage facilities in the energy communities, decrease the import of energy and the dependence on external markets, provide opportunities for the utilization of smart grids technologies.

OUTPUTS:

Alvisi, Chiara, Il fenomeno della mobilità connessa in rapporto alla "problematica della proprietà", «IL DIRITTO MARITTIMO», 2025, CXXVII, pp. 659 - 677 [articolo];

Alvisi, Chiara, MOBILITÁ URBANA SOSTENIBILE E LIBERTÁ DI CIRCOLAZIONE DELLE PERSONE NEL QUADRO DEL PATTO CLIMATICO EUROPEO, «RIVISTA DEL DIRITTO DELLA NAVIGAZIONE», 2024, 1, pp. 423 - 462 [articolo];

De Santis, M., Harighi, T., Di Fazio, A.R., Borghetti, A., Russo, M. (2025). Enhancing voltage optimization in distribution networks through flexible operation of EV parking lots., in SUSTAINABLE ENERGY, GRIDS AND NETWORKS, 41, 1-16, doi: 10.1016/j.segan.2024.101601.

Harighi T., Borghetti A., Napolitano F., Tossani F. (2024). Flexibility modeling for parking lots with multiple EV charging stations, in ELECTRIC POWER SYSTEMS RESEARCH, 234, 1-7, doi: 10.1016/j.epsr.2024.110732.

Borghetti, A., Harighi, T., Nucci, C.A., Graditi, G., Di Somma, M., Caliano, M. (2024). Integration of Multiple Energy Communities: Transaction Prices, Reactive Power Control, and Ancillary Services, capitolo del libro Integrated Local Energy Communities: From Concepts and Enabling Conditions to Optimal Planning and Operation”, Wiley‐VCH GmbH, doi: 10.1002/9783527843282.ch9;

C. Alvisi, F. Quarta (a cura di), Rivoluzione energetica e mobilità del terzo millennio fra mercato e impatto sociale, BUP, 2026, licenza CCBY, leggibile al link RIVOLUZIONE ENERGETICA E MOBILITÀ DEL TERZO MILLENNIO FRA MERCATO E IMPATTO SOCIALE - BUP - Bologna University Press La Fondazione Bologna University Press è un’esperienza editoriale innovativa, coraggiosa ed efficace, che coniuga perfettamente la vocazione universitaria con una ambizione universale.