Chasing Smart Communities standards: lesson learnt from Geothermal Communities project in Montieri (Italy)

European Smart Cities and Communities initiative is asking cities to improve quality of urban life by developing actions aiming at better integrating infrastructures and rationalizing energy use. Lessons learnt from former European demonstration projects represent a valuable expertise on integrated actions aimed at developing innovative measures at urban level. The paper reports and discusses the first results of demonstration activities undertaken in the Italian site of Geothermal Communities project (European Commission, FP7 CONCERTO initiative) where best practices in geothermal energy use, integrated with other renewable energy sources and retrofitting measures, were implemented.