On October 29, 2020, E2DRIVER held a presentation at the online event Sustainable Places 2020 together with three other sister projects – SPEEDIER, SMEmPower and innoveas. The event addressed the challenge of low energy efficiency in SMEs and offered a platform for the four EU projects to present their solutions and highlight their achievements so far.

The session was divided in four main parts:

  • Overview of H2020 EE projects tackling SMEs (Oronzo Daloiso)
  • SMEs and energy efficiency. Needs & background discoveries to date
  • Training proposals based on discoveries
  • Policies to date and opportunities for SMEs

Panelists: Oronzo Daloiso (Project Advisor at EASME); Jo Southernwood (SPEEDIER project); Grigoris K. Papagiannis (SMEmPower project); Riccardo Cariani (INNOVEAS project); Erudino Llano Güemes (E2DRIVER project).

In the first part of the presentation, Oronzo Dalaiso explained how the H2020 projects tackle energy efficiency in industry and SMEs and which projects have been funded so far.

Afterwards, Riccardo Cariani provided a brief summary of the projects that participated in the event (SPEEDIER, INNOVEAS, SMEmPower and E2DRIVER), explaining the objective and the expected main results of each one.

In the section “SMEs and energy efficiency. Needs & background discoveries to date”, Grigoris Papagiannis addressed several surveys that the four projects have performed in EU SMEs about energy efficiency, energy audits and their approach to these issues. Apart from highlighting the number of respondents that have performed energy audits and providing an insight into the number of SMEs that employ energy managers, the session also presented SMEs’ approaches to monitoring their energy performance. Furthermore, the main barriers for increasing the energy efficiency in these companies were also presented.

In the third section about the training proposals and formats, Erudino Llano Güemes explained the evolution of education schemes during the last decade. Afterwards, the main pedagogical approach used in each of the projects was presented. The mobile app of SPEEDIER, the free access videos of INNOVEAS, the certification scheme of SMEmPower and the virtual reality and the ontological flip teaching of the E2DRIVER were highlighted.

Finally, Jo Southernwood performed a review of the main policies that affect SMEs’ energy efficiency across the EU in the policy session of the workshop. She explained how the Energy Efficiency Directive 2012 and other key regulations and plans, such as the Energy Performance of Building Directive 2010, play an important role in improving industrial energy efficiency across Europe. Despite the existence of these policies, the lack of their implementation was highlighted, stressing the fact that most SMEs have not had an energy audit in the last 5 years for a few reasons, including the lack of mandatory obligations for energy audit performance in SMEs. Afterwards, Jo linked these policies and issues to the solutions that are presented in each of the four projects, comparing the barriers that each project is tackling. She closed her presentation highlighting the importance of the combination of the different approaches by each project and the launch of recommendations for policy makers.

To see the full workshop event, follow this link.

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