Interreg Europe POTEnT project is coming to an end, but brought longlasting changes in energy transition policies in all the partners’ region.
POTEnT project focused on enhancing the role of public authorities in energy transition; led by ALOEN, the Energy and climate agency of South Brittany, it brought together 8 partners from 8 different european regions, with the Erasmus Centre for urban, port and transport economics as advisory partner supporting the exchange of experience activities.
During the 4 years of intense cooperation, POTEnT partners has organised 148 policy learning events, identified 32 good practices and in total 157 people has an increased professional capacity due to their participation in interregional cooperation activities. All the 8 regional policy instruments involved have been positively improved thanks to the experience acquired by the partners with the participation to study visits, in depth exchanges and import workshops realised within POTEnT. Despite the end of the implementation phase, in the last 12 months dedicated to the monitoring activities all the partners kept fluent contacts in place at local level with the relevant stakeholders and across the partnership, another tangible sign of the fruitful cooperation beyond numbers.
One of the best moments of the final phase of the project was the final conference: 60 participants (POTEnT members and partners, national players and networks in the field of energy transition, etc.) gathered in Paris in April and were able to benefit from feedback from their partners, as well as from the contributions of various experts (Energy Cities, CLER - Réseau pour la transition énergétique, Yamina Saheb, International Energy Agency (IEA), Institut Jacques Delors, European Commission, City of Charleroi, APC Agence Parisienne du Climat).
With all the data collected and experiences made during the project’s existence, the project partners were able to produce multiple outputs and strategies, improving their policy instruments with various solutions inspired by what successfully worked in other regions. This is an official farewell, but we are confident that POTEnT will keep producing effects in the future as partners are willing to keep a close cooperation on energy transition.
