Promoting renewable energies - RETS Project

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The RETS project grew out of a local initiative to stimulate renewable energy take-up in Northern Alsace: PEREN. The PEREN project ran from 2006 to 2010, and included an innovative approach to clustering bringing together more than 35 committed partners (companies, farms, cooperatives, associations and local authorities), aiming to encourage the emergence and implementation of new projects and actions in renewables on a local level. The Association ADEC was a founding member of this project. With its long experience in the creation and deployment of information technologies, its key objective in PEREN was to show how information technologies could be put at the service of a sector such as renewable energy. ADEC therefore set up a collaborative IT platform that could monitor strategic and technological developments in RES and detect, develop, implement and support new renewable projects in the local area. From 2008 ADEC was keen to carry PEREN forward onto an European level and the idea of RETS was born. Finding a framework, for this new project was not difficult as the tools (good practice exchange, study visits, seminars) available through the INTERREG IVC interregional cooperation programme seemed the ideal support. Indeed, the possibility of using an innovative approach in the project, such as the RETS idea to collaborate using web 2.0 technologies (a wiki and competitive intelligence platform) was welcomed. The INTERREG IVC programme encourages projects to be made up of public authority partners. They are supposed to be the main beneficiaries of the programme and obviously if they are project partners they will gain benefits. RETS however deliberately chose at the beginning to have a mixed partnership bringing together small local authorities, with recognised expert partners from academia, research institutes, specialised agencies and the third sector. Mixing the typology of partners in the project has enormous advantages. On the one hand, local authority partners, particularly small ones, do not always have the capacity or internal staff skills, the language skills (English is not always mastered with ease) or the time to develop certain types of project activities. Moreover, it is not necessarily a good idea to ask them to carry out research style activities: it is not their job. On the other hand, experts in renewable energies or specialists in economic development do have research and technical skills. Not only do they guarantee the scientific exactitude of the activities, they drive the realisation of the deliverables and they are able to process information to make it practical and understandable for the local authority partners. Having these expert partners directly involved, and not just as subcontractors for specific activities, really helps the project dynamic. It is also important to note that as coordinator of RETS, ADEC chose to put at the disposal of the project a complete internal management team that goes over and above the INTERREG recommendations in this area. In addition to the dedicated project manager and financial manager, RETS has a project coordinator with specific skills and understanding in the project content (renewable energies), a technical manager to give support and manage the collaborative tools, and a specialist in competitive intelligence. This structured management team could be seen as one of the reasons for RETS success in delivering the project objectives and federating the partners. RETS is also different, because the collaborative tools are an integral part of the project: they help the project partners, in particular the small local authorities, to develop their renewable agenda because they are participative and not passive such as an email. The partners must connect to access information, and they are encouraged to modify and develop the content. 66 RETS Compendium – © 2012 RETS Consortium
However for cooperation to work on line the group interacting needs to be comfortable with one another. In another deliberate management decision, it was decided to organise right at the beginning of the project several physical group meetings. As a result, after the kick-off meeting in Serta, Portugal in early February 2010, a three-day study visit to the Upper Rhine (France/ Germany) in April 2010 and a three-day study visit to West Wales (United Kingdom) in July 2010, there was real cohesion within the project group. It is consequently much easier to discuss and work together online and at distance. Therefore the project wiki grew in importance, becoming a real platform for exchange. The RETS project wiki (rets-community.eu) is used for both project management and for the implementation of the project tasks. Dedicated sections are created for each activity, whether it be for good practice collection, the seminar tool box, RESPedia, project communication, or meeting information, and different levels of access to the content are provided. Partners do collaborate together using this tool. The project has had particular success in drafting together the quarterly project newsletter, each partner adding their specific text, photos and images to one dedicated page in the wiki. Through its innovative online approach, the RETS wiki has therefore become a real knowledge management system, facilitating the project management, and the production and dissemination of the outputs and results. Students/future teachers participate in a project on renewable energy. They are building a small windmill. Nederlands. After three intensive years working together what are the results and outcomes of the RETS project? Has RETS achieved its objective of being a Renewable Energy Transfer System? The project partners have been confronted with a mass of information on renewables throughout the project, including more than 59 good practices, 37 on site visits, 181 presentations during the conferences and seminars 21 : RETS information by type of renewable technology Solar Wind Biomass Geothermal Hydromarine Waste Good practices 32 18 28 17 10 5 On site visits 17 7 13 8 5 6 Presentations 98 75 90 49 56 31 RESPedia 19 15 21 8 11 7 Total 166 115 152 82 82 49 21 Statistics on project collected until 01/09/2012. Some items are counted in several categories in the tables below, e.g. a visit covers both solar and wind. RETS Compendium – © 2012 RETS Consortium 67
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