An active interregional cooperation continues also during the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally, the 3rd interregional workshop was supposed to be held in a sunny island of Gozo, Malta. Instead, the RESINDUSTRY – Policies for Renewable Energy Sources in Industry project partners met online during the two-day meeting on 21-22 October 2020. LAB University of Applied Sciences is one of the seven RESINDUSTRY partners.
Day 1 – Master Class
The focus of the Master Class was on the Regional Assessment, which will be conducted in all project partner regions. The Regional Assessment will be then an integral part of the regional Action Plans to promote the use of renewables in industry. Dr. Tomaz Fiszer, a Polish expert from Trade-Off company, described the average values of total final energy consumption in the EU by sectors: 40% buildings, 31% transportation, 25% industry, and 4% agriculture (Picture 2). It is obvious, that the industry plays a great role in reducing the total energy consumption, as well as in a transition towards green economy by integration of renewables. Then, Dr. Fiszer guided the project partners through a Regional Assessment evaluation template. To fill this template, partners should collect various indicators from regional energy policies, business plans, energy audits or directly by contacting companies. (Fiszer 2020.) Further training on the Regional Assessment will be organised by the project Lead Partner, Czech Technical University in Prague, University Centre for Energy Efficient Buildings, in November 2020.
Day 2 – Interregional Workshop
The second day gathered both project partners and regional stakeholders and was dedicated to a selection of top ten Best Practices identified in RESINDUNSTRY. In the first year of the project duration, each project partners mapped ten good examples of the industrial application of renewable energy sources, both on the national and regional level. As a result, 67 Good Practices altogether were collated by project partners. After that, the project partnership has preselected 27 most inspiring practices (6 from the Czech Republic, 4 from Finland, 5 from Spain, 5 from Estonia, 3 from Poland, 4 from Austria, and 2 from Malta). During the day, these Good Practices were shortly presented to the participants, who then voted for the best. As some of the practices obtained the same number of votes, in the end, the top 14 Best Practices were selected. These top 14 Best Practices will be then proposed for a submission on the Policy Learning Platform, a free database of Interreg Europe.
All four Finnish nominated practices qualified in the top 14 Best Practices:
Fazer – heat from waste biomass. Processed oat hull mass from making of xylitol sweetener are burned for process heat and district heating.
Suur-Savon Sähkö – hybrid solar thermal-air heat pump. Combination of solar thermal collectors and air heat pumps produce district heating for town of Puumala.
Labio – biogas and composting plant. Composting of waste from biogas production is used to heat the reactors of biogas plant
Halton – geothermal heat pumps. Halton Marine factory producer of HVAC systems for ships, heats and cools itself using reversible geothermal heat pumps.
All Finnish best practices of industries with Renewable Energy Sources are listed on the project page under the website of LAB University of Applied Sciences.
Author
Katerina Medkova who works as an RDI specialist at LAB University of Applied Sciences and is a Project & Communication Manager in the RESINDUSTRY project.
References
Fiszer, T. 2020. Optimal use of renewable sources of energy (RES) in industry sector. PowerPoint given on 22.10.2020 at RESINDUSTRY online Master Class.
Links
Finland Best Practices of industries with RES. 2020. RESINDUSTRY. [Cited 5 Nov 2020]. Available at: https://lab.fi/sites/default/files/2020-11/Finnish%20GPs.pdf
Interreg Europe. 2020a. Good practices from Interreg projects and beyond. Policy Learning Platform. [Cited 6 Nov 2020]. Available at: https://www.interregeurope.eu/policylearning/good-practices/
Interreg Europe. 2020b. Project Summary. RESINDUSTRY. [Cited 5 Nov 2020]. Available at: https://www.interregeurope.eu/resindustry/
University Centre for Energy Efficient Buildings. 2020. Czech Technical University in Prague. [Cited 5 Nov 2020]. Available at: https://www.cvut.cz/en/university-centre-for-energy-efficient-buildings
Pictures
Picture 1. Fauxels. 2019. People Discuss About Graphs and Rates. Pexels. [Cited 03 Nov 2020]. Available at: https://www.pexels.com/photo/people-discuss-about-graphs-and-rates-3184292/
Picture 2. Fiszer, T. 2020. Industry accounts for 25% of the total energy in the EU. Printscreen from a presentation given by Tomas Fiszer during the Master Class on 21.10.2020 by Katerina Medkova.
