OPTIMESH addresses the needs of the thermal grid industry by (1) an innovative roll-out methodology for modern district heating and cooling networks encompassing scouting, design, monitoring and management methodologies that optimize stakeholder KPI’s of thermal grids in a multi energy context and (2) by novel technologies for the next generation of such networks, including multi-agent strategies from artificial intelligence (AI) for energy trade between prosumers, digital twins of buildings and their substations, tools and measurements to validate and verify the design and operation of such a grid.