CTO Assessment - European Commission

tant factor that contributed to its international
recognition through the
achievement of several international
awards.
Within the innovation framework, the
campaign brought new and imaginative
alliances in the support of renewables.
This is the case of the
“Molinos de Campos” project on the
island of Majorca, which aims to recover
more than one hundred old
windmills, developing an advanced
technological project for its reconversion
in wind farm connected to the
grid. This solution will generate a triple
effect: heritage and traditional
landscape recovery, development of
a new tourist product and energy valorisation
of windmills.
Finally, one of the most outstanding
effects arisen under the Campaign is
the development of 100% RES initiatives,
which have been basically
carried out on islands, such as
Götland, Samsø, Æro, Pellworm, and
El Hierro. This last case is a really
isolated island, non-connected to the
grid, where an ambitious project
based in the combination of wind energy
and a hydropower solution for
storing and generation. It is a project
that includes in its conception a new,
future dimension of the renewables
in Europe: water production through
RES-powered desalination.
CTO’s innovating experience is then
advancing towards a new dimension,
situated beyond the conception of the
traditional energy market, and made
concrete through the contribution of
RET solutions as factor of competitivity
in multiple activities and as quality
indicator in important sectors such as
industry or in the conception of the
urban habitat.
Enabling factors
The most frequent factors that allowed
the development of RES objectives in
local communities have been:
Support of national, regional, or
local authorities to initiatives included
in the Campaign.
Creating «demand» for sustainable
energy products and services: energy
information and awareness
raising, energy advice.
Identification and awareness creation
of availability and exploitation
capability of local resources.
Promotion of measures regarding
the supply side: training & education,
R&D, quality control.
Support by local and regional institutions
for the development of pilot
initiatives.
Market liberalization, e.g. facilitating
the direct sale of electricity to
private consumers.
Public awareness support by international
initiatives such as Climate
Alliance or Sustainable Cities, including
recognitions by International
organisations.
Technical support was provided by
the Energy Agencies.
Support to the development of feasibility
studies by local authorities.
Demonstration of good examples to
promote market access.
Readily accessible procedures to
support decision-making (from prediagnosis
to guidance, from diagnosis
to preliminary study or
project).
People’s commitment at all levels.
Existence of favourable legislation,
including tax measures.
Several enabling factors to be considered
are referenced within the
“White Paper for a Community Strategy
and Action Plan“, which includes
a guide for any local initiative in its
first steps of implementation. Furthermore,
many analysed projects befitted
from a financial contribution
through the ALTENER programme of
the European Commission, as well as
through similar projects such as
SAVE and THERMIE, which played
an essential role in the starting of
several CTO initiatives. Together with
the mentioned communitarian programmes,
complementary support by
national governments and local authorities
have been essential factors
at the time to guarantee the final result
of the initiative, as it was clearly
shown in far-reaching cases such as
the initiative of Varese Ligure.
In several cases the patronage coming
from an energy agency or organization
enables to have advisory capacity
in the implementation phase
of a project. This was the case for the
Isle of Wight (UK) who benefits from
the advisory support of the Götland
Energy Agency of Sweden for instance
in the implementation of its target to
reach 67 MW from renewables by
2010. Or also the two Lithuanian
towns Ignalina and Didziasalis that
were able to install a biofuel boiler
and district heating thanks to the support
of the Swedish National Energy
Administration (STEM) who was implementing
the Swedish International
Climate-Related Energy Program.
Existence of legislation favourable to
RES, including tax measures, clearly
demonstrated their efficacy and capability
to create a critical market
mass in some European countries
(e.g. Renewable Energies Act by the
German Government). Nevertheless,
experience accumulated during the
CTO allowed discovering that some
legislative initiatives at local and regional
level can play an equally useful
role. This would be the case of the
Barcelona Renewable 2004 initiative.
Since July 2000, the Barcelona City
Council has implemented a law concerning
the use of solar energy. According
to this «solar by law», all new
buildings as well as those subject to
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Achievements and lessons