Project SIreNERGY - Social Innovation in Renewable Energies

The project overall objective is to improve regional and national policies increasing the share of energy from renewable sources in rural areas to better inform local consumers, empower self-consumers to generate, store, consume and sell renewable electricity without facing disproportionate burdens. As a result of this, the project aims to allow local communities to get involved and help developing specific strategies to improve the acceptance and deployment of renewable energy, thus unlocking the potential that exists in rural areas. 

Project sub-objectives:

-      To integrate renewable energy strategies into local, regional and national economic development strategies to reflect local potential and needs. 

-      To integrate renewable energy within larger supply chains in rural economies, such as agriculture, forestry, traditional manufacturing and green tourism. 

-      To ensure local social acceptance by ensuring clear benefits of using renewable energy as the low-carbon alternative energy to local communities and engaging them in the  design, financing or management process. 

-      To increase involvement of energy consumers as active players in the development of new renewable energy sources

-     To promote synergic dynamics for the generation of renewable energy projects, taking into account the natural resources of the rural area and all the agents involved, and the rest of the projects.

Partners:

1.     Leartibai Foundation, Spain – Lead partner

2.     Basque Energy Agency, Spain

3.     Energy Agency Southern, Sweden

4.     Regional Agency for Entrepreneurship and Innovations – Varna, Bulgaria

5.     Marshal's Office of the Mazovian Voivodeship, Poland

6.     North-East Regional Development Agency, Romania

7.     Association for Environment and Safety in Aquitaine (APESA), France

Associated partners: 

Blekinge Region, Sweden

Municipality of Beloslav, Bulgaria

Main Activities and expected results:

The Regional diagnosis and the exchange of experiences will allow partners to deliver the input to the stakeholders and policymakers, and they will receive the feedback that will help to find the way to improve the policy instrument.

1) Regional Diagnosis for the identification of gaps and improvements on Renewable Energies strategies deployment in Rural Areas: The design approach comes from the transition studies framework which will consist of analysing the socio-political context, the current renewable energy system, the alternative renewable energy system where citizens lead the initiatives, and to finish wit hthe multi-leve social acceptance analysis of these projects.

2) Exchange of experiences, based mainly in Identification and reporting process for good practices to achieve a policy improvement. The best way to reach this objective will be based in the following steps:
• Reporting of Good Practices following Interreg Europe template.
• Field Visits to the partner regions to assess good practices.
• Peer review sessions of good practices.
• Improvements of policy instruments
• Stakeholder groups engagement