Funded Projects 2014-2020
Project SMEC
| Project Acronym | SMEC |
|---|---|
| Project Title | Sustainable Marine Energy Communities in the Northern and Periphery Regions |
Summary
To prepare Feasibility Studies concerning how Energy Communities (EC’s) can play a significant role in making Marine and Fishery regions more sustainable, significantly reduce their energy costs and control their energy-use profiles.
Remote regions within the NPA area tend to be dominated by fishing-related industries which are central to their economic sustainability.Such regions face disadvantages including high-cost base, distance from markets, access to talent pools and limited economic diversity. New EU Directives will enable local regions to create EC’s to generate, store and sell energy to maximise their sustainability.
SMEC will assess the criteria required for the optimum implementation of an EC in 3 remote areas in Ireland, Norway and Finland and complete Feasibility Studies in each. These studies will encompass all aspects of an integrated EC-renewable energy potential, energy profiling of industries, member assessment, development steps, economic models and legal frameworks. The studies will form an overall report detailing best practice. It will include a Design Framework for use by other coastal communities throughout the NPA in creating EC’s allowing them take control of their energy profiles and costs. It will include stakeholder mapping to ensure key stakeholders are engaged with in the upcoming Main Call.
The project will specifically address Objective 2.1:Promoting energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. EC’s will develop the toolsets to ‘transfer and develop sustainable renewable energy generation suitable for cold climates and remote communities’. Inclusion of new mechanisms such as Peer to Peer trading under the new EU Directives will enable these local clusters to design renewable energy systems to meet the aggregated loads of these communities and to maximise their sustainability. This will ‘facilitate the use of place-based energy surpluses and development of smart energy management concepts in remote communities'.
Objectives
The objective of the preparatory project is to develop a high quality main project application.
Lead Partner
- Údarás na Gaeltachta
Ireland
Fionnán Ó hÓgáin
phone 003539150100
e-mail: foh@udaras.ie
Partners
- CENTRIA University of Applied Sciences
Finland - The Arctic University of Norway
Norway - Waterford Institute of Technology
Ireland
Project Info
| Theme Renewable energy, eco products |
| Priority 3 Renewables and Energy Efficiency |
| Objective 3 Increased use of energy efficiency and renewable energy solutions |
| Project duration 01-01-22 to 30-06-22 |
| Total budget 96 129 EUR |
| NPA co-financing 58 924 EUR |
| Target groups business support organisation higher education and research interest groups including NGOs local public authority regional public authority sectoral agency |
| Joint Secretariat Desk Officer Kirsti Mijnhijmer |