Renewable Energy Regions (RegEnergy)

Strong partnerships to connect urban demand and rural supply

Northwestern Europe is one of the EU’s highest energy consuming regions. The share of renewable energy in the region’s production and consumption mix is low and there is a strong dependence on non-renewable energy sources.

RegEnergy aims to break up existing structures to increase the use of renewable energy in northwestern European regions. Creating renewable energy demand–supply partnerships between urbanised and surrounding rural territories will lead to greenhouse gas emissions reductions. Nine project partners from seven northwestern European countries representing metropolitan regions, cities, rural communities, regional agencies, scientific institutions and renewable energy producers will develop strategies and models to illustrate how such partnerships can be built. In three strategic areas, the missing regional links between demand and supply from renewables will be addressed: The institutional and administrative framework conditions (e.g. cooperation agreements) as well as the main infrastructure (e.g. biogas pipelines) that such partnerships require are as central as the question of required technologies (e.g. smart grids, storage capacities).

Pilot partnerships in across Northwest-Europe will invest in

  • institutional arrangements for regional prosumers
  • lacking renewable infrastructure
  • regional supply-demand chains
  • coping with limited grid capacity and intermittent RE supply
  • balancing regional supply and demand profiles

To sustain and widely spread the results, RegEnergy partners will present best-practice examples to cooperating regions and will actively help them to develop appropriate renewable demand-supply partnerships in their regions.

In RegEnergy, Climate Alliance is working with eight projectpartners from France (Brest métropolis), Belgium (Flux50), Great Britain (Plymouth City Council), the Netherlands (Waterstromen), Ireland (3 Counties Energy Agency, Waterford Institute of Technology, Ormonde Upgrading Limited) and Switzerland (Planair).

Project funding period: October 2018 – September 2022
RegEnergy is supported by the INTERREG Northwest Europe Program. The total project budget amounts to €11.08 million; application for ERDF funding amounts to €6.1 million.

Want to learn more? Contact Hélène Rizzotti at h.rizzotti(at)climatealliance.org

nweurope.eu/regenergy

Further Information