The GREENER project “CLUSTERING REMOTE REGIONS for ENERGY RESILIENCE and GROWTH” worked together for a year, combining the efforts of 3 Northern Periphery and Arctic Programme funded projects (SMARCTIC, LECo and h-CHP) to address a common challenge: increasing awareness and transferring knowledge about the latest energy solutions to public authorities, communities and businesses across the NPA area.
The project is led by the ERNACT network (Ireland) with close cooperation from Centria University of Applied Sciences and University of Oulu, both in Finland. The GREENER project has created synergies among 23 partners from 8 countries that face the same challenge: high energy costs for domestic, business, and public consumers in the NPA regions.
The GREENER project started in July 2021, with partners collating an inventory of Good Energy Practices identified within their individual NPA projects, including excellent examples of wind, solar, snow, ocean, and geothermal energy systems. After that, GREENER team documented the Energy Services developed in and by their own NPA projects and their networks. All the Good Energy Practices and Innovative Energy Services that can be transferred to housing and public infrastructure in remote areas have been shared through the 3 seminars organised throughout the year and on an interactive map that you will find at the GREENER project website.
On May 18, GREENER lead partner representative, Anne Marie McLaughlin, participated at the NPA in-person! event in a panel discussing the benefits of cluster projects and presenting the achievements of the GREENER project over the past months.
On June 16, partners celebrated the GREENER Closing Conference on "Energy innovation for remote communities", with energy experts from across the NPA area sharing their expertise about energy efficiency potential for municipalities, Local Energy Communities, how to implement Smart City technologies in rural settings and biogas production and distribution.
In the upcoming months, the partnership will develop a new project proposal for the 2021 – 2027 NPA funding programme, based on the knowledge sharing, learning, innovation, increased awareness and new networks developed through the GREENER project.