Energy efficiency

On May 24 and 25, the first Interregional events of the Interreg Europe ShareRES and MonitorEE projects were held in Badajoz where twelve partners from different European regions participated, including Finland, France, Poland, Romania, Croatia, Ireland, Latvia, Cyprus, Slovenia, and Extremadura, being the latter leader in both projects.

These projects deal with two issues of vital importance in Extremadura: the monitoring of energy consumption in buildings and the development of Energy Communities.

ShareRES seeks to promote in the next 4 years the active participation of citizen energy communities in the energy market, in collaboration with partners from Latvia, Ireland, Romania, Cyprus and Slovenia. In this period the barriers and difficulties for the formation of Energy Communities will be analyzed, involving relevant public stakeholders in the area, sharing knowledge and previous experiences within the Consortium, and also creating tools and solutions based on the previous solutions and experiences shared, which shall in turn promote the development of local economies.

MonitorEE aims to improve the policies related to the promotion of energy efficiency and energy performance in buildings, by monitoring and analyzing energy consumption, analyzing possible improvement measures, and simulating the theoretical demand after the implementation of the measures. After the implementation phase, energy consumption and emissions shall be monitored again. MonitorEE will also take place over four years, involving partners from Croatia, Romania, Finland, the Paris Energy and Climate Agency, and Poland.

Master Class and technical visits

During these two days, a Master Class and two technical visits were held, which allowed the exchange of knowledge and experiences among the partners, as one of the key points of Interreg Europe is precisely the exchange of experiences and understanding how a widespread problem in different regions has been dealt with from different points of view, using different policy tools.

The first day of the event was focused on the exchange of good practices in both projects. The case of the Irish partner (SEAI) is noteworthy, as it has created a clear roadmap for community projects, highlighting the evaluation of the electricity grid availability and the access to various financing resources, such as the Renewable Energy Support Scheme (RESS) and the Regional Enterprise Innovation Scoping Scheme (REISS).

The Paris Energy and Climate Agency presented a project in which the real consumption of eight renovated condominiums was analyzed, which has made it possible to corroborate the effectiveness of the measures implemented in the buildings and to study possible areas for improvement. Additionally, this study has provided enough insight for the city council to be able to implement similar strategies in other condominiums.

The second day of the event was dedicated to two very relevant technical visits:

The first visit, in the city of Badajoz, was the shared energy self-consumption with storage prototype (shared by various public buildings), developed by AGENEX under the framework of the INOINNVEST project. This project represents a significant advance in the field of renewable energy, since it allows several consuming units to share the energy generated and stored locally. The partners were able to see up close the feasibility and benefits of this solution, evaluating its potential application in their respective regions.

The second technical visit took place in Cáceres, where the pilot demonstrators of the EDEA and EDEA RENOV project were visited. These demonstrators fully develop a methodology and a model for the design and construction of social housing in Extremadura under energy sustainability criteria. The partners had the opportunity to learn first-hand about these good practices, and gained valuable knowledge that could be applied in their own regions.

Both events represented the starting point for the MonitorEE and ShareRES projects, which began on March 1, 2023, and will end on May 31, 2027.