On June 15, the fourth APPROVE interregional workshop was a great occasion for the project partners and some of their regional stakeholders to share more good practices and to update each other about the progress of the preliminary action plans. Since in the original work programme the workshop should have had place in Normandy instead that online, a particular focus was reserved to the presentation and discussion of experiences from there. We hope anyway to be able to have actual site visits in Normandy soon!
In the first part of the workshop, each territorial partner presented the main elements of the preliminary regional action plan in progress, explaining which specific aspects of the interregional exchange of experience done so far is inspiring and supporting the definition of the actions.
- The Region of Lapland is working on two main ideas: the district heating renewal for Lapland’s Green Deal and the design of hybrid plants for municipalities.
- The promotion of photovoltaic panels for electric charging stations will be the focus of the Epirus action plan.
- The action plan of the Normandy Region will include the development of a Citizen Energy Plan and the definition of a protocol about environmental and participatory aspects of biogas projects.
- EREN (Regional public energy entity of Castilla y León) intends to work on calls for RES projects involving crowdfunding, cooperatives, rural communities, education and dissemination.
The second part of the workshop included four presentations.
- The 7vents Cooperative presented the freshly released study commissioned by the Normandy Region within APPROVE Analysis, identification of tools and actions, recommendations for the development of participatory and citizen-led renewable energy projects in Normandy. (slides)
- The social enterprise Plaine Sud Energies presented a crowdfunding and citizen-focused renewable energy project. The APPROVE project partners were told how citizens have managed their projects from the idea to the actual photovoltaic production from the technical, financial and governance points of view. (slides)
- The Normandy Region presented the Normandy Biogas Production Plan and its technical committee for project appraisal which is a key point of the environment set up in order to facilitate the biogas projects development. (slides)
- EREN presented the case of the district heating using biomass in the Junta de Castilla y León headquarter, an exemplary facility for boosting the use of biomass in public buildings showing the Regional government's commitment to renewable energy. The investment has been financed at 50% by the ERDF. An average 20% saving in economic terms is expected with respect to fossil fuel. (slides)
