In the commencement of 2019, the CLEAN partnership would like to highlight the good energy practices that have been identified and shared in each of the 9 partner regions and the impact they have had thanks to this Interreg Europe funded project.
ERNACT, lead partner of the CLEAN project, has shared three good energy practices: two from Donegal County Council (Ireland) and one Derry City and Strabane District Council (Northern Ireland).
The practices shared from Donegal are: ‘ISO 50001 Energy Management System Implementation’, an achieved accreditation that demonstrates a clear understanding of where energy is used in an organisation, and ‘Street Lighting Retrofit with LED’, with the objective of retrofitting existing street lighting with more energy efficient LED.
From Derry and Strabane, ERNACT has shared the ‘Integrated Intelligent Lighting System’ good practice, that demonstrates how intelligent lighting measures have improved energy consumption in the council’s public buildings.
“The CLEAN project is using our communication network to promote these Good Practices to policy makers right across Europe so that other regions may also benefit from transferring and implementing these Good Practices”, says Dr Caitriona Strain, Project Manager at ERNACT and CLEAN Project Leader.
Participation in project’s staff exchanges
During 2018, ERNACT and some key stakeholders have participated in two, of the six organised, staff exchanges to North Karelia (Finland) and Campania region (Italy). This participation has occurred after the identification of more than 30 good energy practices, including the 3 above, among the partnership.
In the first case, representatives from ERNACT and Development Agency of Savinjska Region (Slovenia) travelled to North Karelia on the 23rd and the 24th of January 2018 to learn more about the Finnish good practices that Regional Council of North Karelia presented at CLEAN’s launch conference in October 2017, in Normandy (France). Partners got the opportunity to find out more about the heat recovery system from exhaust air at the Central Hospital of Joensuu city, the heat recovery from municipal wastewater installations, the energy efficiency measures at Sirkkala Renewable Energy Park and the project for thermal heating renovation of Sokos Hotel Koli.
“North Karelia has a vision of becoming a fossil free region and we found that their expertise could bring some light to Donegal’s and Derry and Strabane’s ongoing work on energy efficiency measures and achievements”, adds Ianire Renobales, Digital Communications Officer at ERNACT.
In the second case, two of the ERNACT’s key stakeholders for the project and representatives from the Region of Crete (Greece) attended the staff exchange organised in Campania on the 30th and 31st of May 2018. Our Italian partner, Naples Agency for Energy and Environment (ANEA), hosted a two-days visit to share energy efficiency measures at the University of Sannio and the University of Naples.
“I have held a Local Energy Day and I have briefed staff in Donegal County Council on the learnings from my visit”, explains Paddy Mullen, Facilities Manager at DCC. He adds that they have planned some internal workshops for a group of staff involved in the design of a new building project for DCC and, “it is my intention to give some feedback at this workshop on what I experienced in Naples. The feedback from the site visit will also be disseminated at our next Energy Team meeting.”
The second stakeholder that participated in the staff exchange, Ciara Burke, Project Manager at Derry City and Strabane District Council highlights that: “regarding the knowledge transfer, there is an opportunity to share this amongst colleagues and amongst other projects. It is envisaged that updates, learning and knowledge gained will be disseminated amongst key colleagues to help spread learning in addition to sharing the good practice to other local councils and project partners in other EU projects (E.g. STARDUST, CLIMATE & SECURE).”
Find out more about the staff exchange in North Karelia and Campania regions.
