EU Sustainable Energy Week: ‘White puts sustainable energy front and centre’

White currently supports five Horizon 2020 project that focus on sustainable energy

The shift towards sustainable energy is one of the main challenges that EU policy makers are facing today. To highlight the importance of a secure energy future for Europe, the European Commission is this week once again holding its EU Sustainable Energy Week (25-29 October 2021). During this period, it hosts a series of activities and events that focus on initiatives that save energy and move towards renewables for clean, secure and efficient power. This year’s theme is ‘Towards 2030: Reshaping the European Energy System’.

At White, we would like to take this opportunity to highlight some of the sustainable energy initiatives that we are involved in. In fact, we currently support five project that are funded by the EU’s Horizon 2020 funding program that all in one way or another focus on energy security in different industries and EU member states.

A short overview:

Duration: 2019 – 2021

Project: Agrobiomass is a large resource, which can support the European Energy and Climate targets, while promoting rural development and a circular economy. AgroBioHeat aims to produce both agrobiomass heating and improved solutions that could be mass deployed in the EU. The project mostly takes place in six countries. There it engages the public, aligns national interests, and supports the creation of policy, financial and social conditions for the expansion of agrobiomass heating.

White’s role: We designed an EU-level survey of the general public’s social perceptions, needs and understanding of agrobiomass for heating. We also indicated possible pathways for policy making towards enabling the market uptake of agrobiomass for heating. On a local level, we organized a series of consultation workshops to reveal existing perceptions and insights. Finally, we administered a local survey per region to investigate local stakeholders’ intentions to act with regard to agrobiomass heating.

 

Duration: 2020 – 2023

Project: The BECoop project aims to develop the necessary condition and technical as well as business support tools, to unlock the underlying market potential of community bioenergy, which is an underdeveloped source of renewable energy. It will do so by fostering new links and partnerships in four pilot areas in Greece, Italy Poland and Spain.

White’s role: We are responsible for managing and coordinating the project. We are also responsible for analysing the community bioenergy application potential in bioenergy heating and we arrange the replication of the BECoop concept and results to additional regional frameworks.

 

Duration: 2020-2024

Project: The main objective of CORALIS is to create pathways for the decarbonisation of resource and energy intensive sector value chains. More specifically, it focusses on the chemical, food, steel, foundry and aluminum sectors. The Coralis project hopes to achieve decarbonization through the implementation of viable industrial symbiosis approaches that combine new business and management strategies with innovative technology-based enablers. The project’s short-term goals are to improve the knowledge basis and to lay the foundations for exploiting the potential of Industrial Symbiosis in the EU process industry.

White’s role: We are responsible for the design of the communication strategy and to lead the project’s communication activities.

 

Duration: 2020 – 2023

Project: RE4Industry identifies and promotes feasible renewable energy solutions through a comprehensive network of stakeholders and market actors. It develops a baseline methodology for the design of renewable energy deployment action plans in collaboration with technical and financial experts. It then validates the results in 3 industrial case studies from the chemical, steel and aluminum sectors. A solid replication strategy will enable the roll out of this methodology in at least 8 additional use cases in a variety of sector. The goal is to eventually be replicated across Europe.

White’s role: Among other things, we are responsible for designing and guiding the stakeholder engagement strategy and orchestrating the creation of the collaborative network. We also coordinate the interactions and feedback exchange between the project partners and market actors.

 

Duration: 2020 – 2023

Project: W4RES puts women at the forefront, as agents of change, to drive the shift towards renewable heating and cooling uptake. Ultimately the goal is to contribute towards the EU’s energy and climate targets for 2030. W4Res implements a gender-responsive monitoring and evaluation framework across 8 EU countries to devise measures that can address diverse policy and market needs across Europe.

White’s role: We are responsible for analyzing the perceptions, needs and challenges of market actors in renewable heating and cooling. We also coordinate a series of co-creative initiatives to facilitate engagement and collaboration of all stakeholders. Finally, we lead the regional hub and activities in Belgium.