ENERJ presented in the Workshop “Smart Energy use”
ENERJ was presented in the Workshop “Smart Energy use” by Dr. Karl-Ludwig Schibel, coordinator of Climate Alliance Italy, the partner responsible for communication in occasion of the International Climate Alliance Conference 2017 which went from Sept. 20 to Sept. 22. The first contribution came from Alexander Nordhus who works in the energy management unit of the city of Nuremberg. An interview with him can be found in the Newsletter # 2. Katharinina Meler presented the project “Ista mach Schule”. Ista is aprivate service provider with 5.000 staff members in 24 countries. The campaign is a contribution of the enterprise as a sponsor for Essen as Green European Capital 2017. The project deals with the measurement and visualisation of energy consumption data and how to integrate these into a pedagogic concept.
The presentation of ENERJ contextualised the project within the Interreg MED community and more generally within the European projects that deal with energy efficiency in (public) buildings which try to confront a deeply unsatisfactory situation of e very low rate of refurbishment in all of the EU countries. There are reasons for that which are well-known. Each project tries to tackle this issue from a specific angle to overcome the existing barriers.
ENERJ does so departing from a base of existing energy plans, mostly elaborated in the context of the Covenant of Mayors and has as its cardinal points the elaboration of Joint Actions and the training of Joint Action Coordinators. The situation of the Greek and the Portuguese partners were used as examples.
The discussion concentrated on the difficulty to collect data, which all participants considered a major problem. The conclusion for ENERJ should be to dedicate attention also to promising ways of institutionalising the collection of data. A second point in the discussion were the different approaches needed to involve different target groups in energy efficiency measures, a topic certainly of interest for ENERJ. Techniques of visualisation play here a major role. The third point was the use of public funds and the reluctance of many public bodies to use the structural funds of the European Union. Reasons that were given are the complicated procedures and an uncertain outcome that in view of some participants does not justify dedicating large amounts of staff time which can be used more effectively to try to mobilize other funds.