WORKSHOP OF THE PRIORITY AREA 2 SHOWED EXAMPLES OF GOOD PRACTICE OF USING RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES AT MUNICIPAL LEVEL IN THE DANUBE REGION

 

The Energy Priority Area has chosen the issue of the use of renewable energy sources as  the topic of one of its workshops organized within the 4th Annual Forum of the EU Strategy of the Danube Region.

The aim of the workshop “Energy efficient and sustainable Danube cities and regions: Linking strategic thinking and energy issues” which took place on the 30th October 2015 was to show that despite the cities and regions in the Danube region are facing many obstacles when dealing with the use of renewable energy sources, there are many opportunities, tools and examples of good practice, which can be followed.

Following the opening remarks by the moderator Ms Marketa Rocejdlova, European Commision analyst Mrs Maud Skäringer presented the financial instruments within the cohesion policy for investments in sustainable energy. She stressed that within the multiannual framework 2014-2020 investment in energy efficiency and low-carbon economy has doubled. Following presentation of Mrs Skäringer, Mr Walter Göppel from the Ravensburg Energy Agency and Mrs Karin Mottl from Energiepark Bruck/Leitha have shown their experiences with incorporating the RES in the energy planning of the municipalities. With very positive results and with ambitious goals of reaching energy autonomy by using renewable energy sources both Mr Göppel as well as Mrs Mottl have emphasized the need to engage locals as key aspect for success. Later Mr Norbert Kohlheb from Szent Istvan University in Hungary presented the obstacles municipalities are facing while choosing biomass as suitable source of renewable energy and introduced the project DANUBIOM, a database aiming to improve the use of biomass in the Danube region. The last presentation of Mr Lukas Pacek from the Czech Life Science University focused on the experience of the Danube region with using unsuitable source of renewable energy with respect to the environment and presented project RESTEP, a tool to asses available local sources of renewable energy.

Please see the presentations of the workshop below:

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Energy_efficient_and_sustainable_Danube_cities_and_regions_Energiepark

Energy_efficient_and_sustainable_Danube_cities_and_regions_Ravensburg

Energy_efficient_and_sustainable_Danube_cities_and_regions_RESTEP

Energy_efficient_and_sustainable_Danube_cities_and_regions_SZIE