One year of EnercitEE

Working Group / Steering Group Meeting, October 2010, Heraklion

EnercitEE has now been up and running for more than a year. Since the presentation of progress in the first newsletter, which was published in September 2010, EnercitEE has made a big step forward. After the initial important steps towards establishing a trusting partnership and a smooth collaboration, one key focus of EnercitEE is underway – the sub-projects.

In the middle of September 2010, the 1st Call for Proposals was closed. The coordination office received seven sub-project applications that all passed the eligibility test. That means that they fulfilled all the formal criteria and could, therefore, be passed on to the Component Managers responsible for performing the quality assessment.

The quality assessment is based on the criteria outlined in the EnercitEE manual. On the basis of the assessment of the Component Managers – the EnercitEE partners Haute-Savoie local authorities and ASTER from Emilia-Romagna – six sub-projects have been approved. They are described further down in the newsletter.

Following the Working and Steering Group meetings, study visits and training sessions have been organised to promote good practices from the regions and provide a platform for an interregional exchange of experiences. This exchange of experiences is a very important aspect of EnercitEE. The potential, the experience and the knowledge that exists in each region have to be shared and made available outside the partnership too. An initial step is taken by documenting the study visits and training sessions. The next step will be taken in April 2011, when we are going to run the first EnercitEE Component Seminar.

We are all required to distribute the primary results of EnercitEE as widely as possible through the website, press releases, regional newsletters, flyers, poster exhibitions etc. Any feedback, comments or other contributions are welcome. Please contact the EnercitEE coordination office at: enercitee.lfulg@smul.sachsen.de

I am looking forward to a successful year for EnercitEE in 2011 – a year full of challenges, exchange and moving forward. In the coming year, we have some very important milestones to overcome once again. Everybody is needed to contribute to the success of EnercitEE and its sub-projects, and finally to achieve a more sustainable way of life, for the sake of our environment and the future of the next generations.

                                     
                                              Anja Barth, EnercitEE project coordinator