Co-Creating Positive Energy Districts: Experimental Governance and Transformative Capacity in Bucharest and Copenhagen

Positive Energy Districts (PEDs) are central to the European Union’s vision for climate-neutral cities, aiming to transform urban energy systems at the neighborhood scale through integrated technological, infrastructural, and governance innovations. Beyond technical solutions, PEDs increasingly serve as experimental arenas where new planning practices, institutional arrangements, and stakeholder collaborations are tested amid uncertainty. This article explores experimental governance through co-creation processes, based on empirical evidence from the KINETIC project (2023–2025), a JPI Urban Europe initiative. Focusing on two urban living labs in Bucharest and Copenhagen, the study analyses the implementation of a co-creation roadmap that facilitates multi-stakeholder engagement, knowledge integration, and collective envisioning of PEDs as drivers of sustainable urban transition. The Bucharest case demonstrates the role of virtual PED models and community empowerment in a post-socialist context, while Copenhagen highlights housing associations’ intermediary role and the challenges of navigating regulatory complexity within mature energy infrastructures. Drawing on theories of urban experimentation, reflexive governance, and transformative capacity, the findings reveal how co-creation fosters institutional learning, spatial negotiation, and adaptive planning. The study underscores that situated experimental practices enhance governance reflexivity and build capacities for long-term socio-technical transitions, while also surfacing tensions between technocratic agendas and inclusive, just urban futures.