Renewable energies and self-consumption

The Extremadura Energy Agency (AGENEX) participated in the partner meeting of the European project COMMIT, which took place in the IJmond region (Netherlands) on March 25 and 26. Under the title 'Green skills for sustainable jobs', the event brought together project partners and other key stakeholders to share and promote initiatives focused on vocational training in renewable energy and other essential skills to support the transition toward a low-carbon economy.

Lidia Calderón, Director of AGENEX, and Ana Belén Gallego, Manager of the Extremadura Energy Cluster, attended the event. It provided an opportunity for both organizations to learn about the experiences and initiatives being developed in other European regions related to green vocational training.

Representing Extremadura, the PAF25 was presented as a good practice. This is the Annual Training Plan recently launched by the Energy Cluster in collaboration with the Directorate General for Employment Training of the Regional Government of Extremadura. The program offers over one hundred free courses aimed at increasing business competitiveness and promoting more sustainable and high-quality employment in the region.

Throughout the event, the importance of improving workforce skills in key industrial sectors was emphasized, as well as the crucial role that technical and vocational training can play in addressing the challenges of industrial decarbonization—COMMIT’s main objective.

In addition to the working sessions, participants went on technical visits, including a tour of the Tata Steel plant in the IJmond region. The company is progressing toward more sustainable steel production, with the goal of achieving carbon-neutral manufacturing by 2045.

THE COMMIT PROJECT

AGENEX is a member of the COMMIT project along with eleven other partners from Slovenia, the Netherlands, Denmark, Bulgaria, Norway, Greece, and Serbia. This project, funded by the European Union through the Interreg Europe program, began in April 2024 and will run until June 2028, with a total budget of €2.4 million. Its main goal is to support local and regional authorities in creating an ecosystem that facilitates the energy transition of SMEs, with a focus on decarbonizing the industrial sector.