Good practice:

ORECAN (Normandy’s Regional Observatory for Energy, Climate and Air)

The Observatory was founded by Normandy Region, ADEME (French Environment & Energy Management Agency) and the State as a support to local authorities to embark on their energy transition and to implement their energy transition plans. The Observatory responds also to the need for regulatory follow-up for the State’s regional environment departments and for the Region.
ORECAN has 4 core tasks:
- Producing data on energy consumption, energy production, production of greenhouse gases, emissions of atmospheric pollutants. Gathering and processing information and data needed to develop and implement local and regional energy policies and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
- Sharing produced data with local authorities and the general public through the institution website
- Supporting local authorities as they embark on their energy transition and monitoring public policies (also via ORECAN points of contact)
- Coordinating the Communities of communes involved in the energy transition (training, methodological support, etc). Those territories are especially involved through the “100% renewable energy territory plan”. 10 communities of communes are involved in such plan after the call for manifestation launched by Normandy Region and ADEME
The Observatory is operated by Biomasse Normandie (association developing innovative projects linked with the treatment of biomass and by Atmo Normandie (regional association responsible for the measurement of air quality in the region).

ORECAN’s total budget for the three-year period 2018-2020 is € 635,299 including all taxes and charges, funded by Région Normandie and ADEME.
Staff : 1,5 ETP from ATMO Normandie and 1,72 ETP from Biomasse Normandie

Of the 50 local authorities which have implemented a Plan Climat Air-Énergie Territorial (Climate, Air and Energy Plan), all 50 use data produced by ORECAN, demonstrating the reliability of the data produced and allowing a regional standardisation of the data used (data produced in a homogenous way facilitate the comparison among territories).

Difficulties in communicating the data; the website shows just summarised data without all the details.
Secrecy around some data (relating to the Industrial Secrecy Act).
Lesson learned: tutorials or training have to be implemented for the data use.

This system is used in several regions in France, but only partially (for example, some regions do not have data on their renewable energy production).
ORECAN could be considered as a good practice for other regions since it allows, at the regional level, a great knowledge about the data produced on the territory. It then allows a comparison with other regions or even among territories inside the Region. The data could then be used for the implementation of regional policies.
The implementation of the good practice requires an institution able to produce such data but also to communicate such data to the local authorities and to accompany them in their energy transition. An institution producing data without local authorities’ monitoring would not be enough.