Periodic Reporting for period 2 - REScoop Plus (REScoop Plus)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2017-09-01 al 2019-02-28
The objective of REScoop Plus is to develop energy saving services as a new activity for European REScoops. Together with a large number of successful cooperative energy suppliers, the project has measured their overall energy savings and identified the European best practices and the findings are now being disseminated throughout a wide network of European REScoops and policy makers.
REScoop Plus builds on the knowledge and network of the REScoop 20-20-20 project. An interesting additional observation made in the previous project was that members of supplying REScoops change their behaviour reducing final energy consumption and investing money to produce renewable energy. The aim of REScoop PLUS therefore has been to have a better understanding and foster this behavioural change. We have identified and measured the best practices, shared their knowledge, improved their activities in their citizen’s engagement and energy efficiency actions and disseminated them to other supplying REScoops in Europe.
REScoops in Europe are going beyond their activities of producing and supplying energy and taking up energy savings for their members as a new pillar in their organisation.
Specific objectives of this project were:
1. Go beyond the superficial claims and indications of energy savings in supplying REScoops
2. Get a better understanding of recently applied work in behavioral science especially related to energy use by REScoop members
3. Share best practices and develop state of the art toolkit for energy savings in REScoops
4. Get a better understanding of the legal barriers and best practices concerning energy savings with consumer/members in REScoops and give policy advice
5. Dissemination and market uptake the state-of-the-art toolkit and the expert group
REScoop Plus builds on the knowledge and network of the REScoop 20-20-20 project. An interesting additional observation made in the previous project was that members of supplying REScoops change their behaviour reducing final energy consumption and investing money to produce renewable energy. The aim of REScoop PLUS therefore has been to have a better understanding and foster this behavioural change. We have identified and measured the best practices, shared their knowledge, improved their activities in their citizen’s engagement and energy efficiency actions and disseminated them to other supplying REScoops in Europe.
REScoops in Europe are going beyond their activities of producing and supplying energy and taking up energy savings for their members as a new pillar in their organisation.
Specific objectives of this project were:
1. Go beyond the superficial claims and indications of energy savings in supplying REScoops
2. Get a better understanding of recently applied work in behavioral science especially related to energy use by REScoop members
3. Share best practices and develop state of the art toolkit for energy savings in REScoops
4. Get a better understanding of the legal barriers and best practices concerning energy savings with consumer/members in REScoops and give policy advice
5. Dissemination and market uptake the state-of-the-art toolkit and the expert group
The first part of the project focused in the overall inventory collection of all activities on energy savings of our partners. This research was done by the University of Twente based on questionnaires and short interviews with the partners. Next to that the Technical University of Crete did a data analysis on those activities that could give substantial data and could be measured.
In the inventory there was a list of 17 practices. Based on the established criteria we made a selection of 7 best practices. Once selected there was a second interview with experts on each of the best practices to get a better understanding of the actions involved, the way of implementation and the costs involved. During the interviews we went through the criteria with the experts in order to obtain additional information, and a more detailed explanation of the scoring on each criterion. Thus, for most of the criteria the scoring is a qualitative score based on the interviews with the experts. The Technical University of Crete contributed with data analysis on a quantitative scoring of the impact of the best practices, in case sufficient data were available.
For the selection of best practices, we developed a concrete set of selection criteria, assuring the selected practices included a balanced set of characteristics, and taking into account different types of concerns that will influence their dissemination and implementation.
Selection criteria:
1 Effectiveness:
2 Pre-investments and share of costs
3 Implementation
4 Market uptake
5 Ethical performance
The Best practices selected for the REScoop Toolkit were the following:
• The “package” approach
• One tariff structure
• Energie ID
• Dr. Watt
• Infoenergia
• Optimize return-flow
• Technical support
5 Cooperatives members of the Consortium adopted 6 different best practices during the implementation period for the pilots and when imparting workshops resulted in at least 20 opportunities for best practice uptake and replication among the European community of renewable energy cooperatives.
In the inventory there was a list of 17 practices. Based on the established criteria we made a selection of 7 best practices. Once selected there was a second interview with experts on each of the best practices to get a better understanding of the actions involved, the way of implementation and the costs involved. During the interviews we went through the criteria with the experts in order to obtain additional information, and a more detailed explanation of the scoring on each criterion. Thus, for most of the criteria the scoring is a qualitative score based on the interviews with the experts. The Technical University of Crete contributed with data analysis on a quantitative scoring of the impact of the best practices, in case sufficient data were available.
For the selection of best practices, we developed a concrete set of selection criteria, assuring the selected practices included a balanced set of characteristics, and taking into account different types of concerns that will influence their dissemination and implementation.
Selection criteria:
1 Effectiveness:
2 Pre-investments and share of costs
3 Implementation
4 Market uptake
5 Ethical performance
The Best practices selected for the REScoop Toolkit were the following:
• The “package” approach
• One tariff structure
• Energie ID
• Dr. Watt
• Infoenergia
• Optimize return-flow
• Technical support
5 Cooperatives members of the Consortium adopted 6 different best practices during the implementation period for the pilots and when imparting workshops resulted in at least 20 opportunities for best practice uptake and replication among the European community of renewable energy cooperatives.
In order to foster dissemination and uptake, 6 specific workshops were organized by the consortium under the supervision of REScoop.eu. The goal of those workshops was to present the toolkit and to open the discussion and way for adoption with local citizen initiatives.
In each country, we worked with a local partner in order to know what the more efficient solution to would be present and to get people to join our workshops. We relied heavily on the knowledge and network of the local partner in order to reach out to local citizens initiatives “under-the-radar”.
Regarding the challenge of building capacities and skills in the field of energy issues, we reached 178.818 people with this objective and satisfactory increased their skills, capability and competences.
Regarding the energy savings achieved by rescoop members we reached 29.3 GWh/year among these three years.
Several good results are to be referred:
• We see that there are many different energy-saving measures and activities undertaken by the supplying REScoops (WP2 and WP3 catalogue activities).
• With statistical analysis, we have demonstrated clear savings from citizens after they become members of a REScoop (i.e. EBO: up to 20%; ENERCOOP: up to 15%; SOM ENERGIA: up to 31%)
• Half of the interviewed members of REScoops claim they have reduced their energy consumption since they joined a REScoop. Of those who are aware of their energy consumption (11% of the respondents) 40% indicate to have saved at least 10% energy over 2015-2016.
• The longer respondents indicate to be REScoop members the more they engage in energy savings actions, and the more they save energy (at least since becoming a REScoop member).
• Respondents indicate to engage more in RES investing after becoming a REScoop member.
• The longer respondents are REScoop members the more willing they become to invest in RES.
Legal and Advocacy Research
REScoop PLUS ran in parallel with the legislative process linked to the production of the Clean Energy Package. Therefore, the project had the opportunity to work around several questions coming through the production of the energy efficiency, the electricity market and the renewables directives.
The project had the opportunity to produce several reports analysing the legislative environment at the European level, and in 5 member-states. The results of those reports allowed us to produce strong guidance for policy makers and cooperative leaders relating to the current state of the legislations in those 5 countries relating to the deployment of efficiency services, and the potential evolutions following the publication of the Clean Energy Package.
Dissemination and Communication
Throughout the project REScoop PLUS our approach was to have the maximum impact at the local level, encouraging energy saving, behaviour changes, and the growth of the cooperative movement. The evolution and growth of the community energy movement in European and neighbouring countries, will results in a more efficient, fairer and cleaner energy system overall. Specifically, we showed through the REScoop PLUS project, that collective action is more efficient, more engaging and more sustainable for citizens.
In each country, we worked with a local partner in order to know what the more efficient solution to would be present and to get people to join our workshops. We relied heavily on the knowledge and network of the local partner in order to reach out to local citizens initiatives “under-the-radar”.
Regarding the challenge of building capacities and skills in the field of energy issues, we reached 178.818 people with this objective and satisfactory increased their skills, capability and competences.
Regarding the energy savings achieved by rescoop members we reached 29.3 GWh/year among these three years.
Several good results are to be referred:
• We see that there are many different energy-saving measures and activities undertaken by the supplying REScoops (WP2 and WP3 catalogue activities).
• With statistical analysis, we have demonstrated clear savings from citizens after they become members of a REScoop (i.e. EBO: up to 20%; ENERCOOP: up to 15%; SOM ENERGIA: up to 31%)
• Half of the interviewed members of REScoops claim they have reduced their energy consumption since they joined a REScoop. Of those who are aware of their energy consumption (11% of the respondents) 40% indicate to have saved at least 10% energy over 2015-2016.
• The longer respondents indicate to be REScoop members the more they engage in energy savings actions, and the more they save energy (at least since becoming a REScoop member).
• Respondents indicate to engage more in RES investing after becoming a REScoop member.
• The longer respondents are REScoop members the more willing they become to invest in RES.
Legal and Advocacy Research
REScoop PLUS ran in parallel with the legislative process linked to the production of the Clean Energy Package. Therefore, the project had the opportunity to work around several questions coming through the production of the energy efficiency, the electricity market and the renewables directives.
The project had the opportunity to produce several reports analysing the legislative environment at the European level, and in 5 member-states. The results of those reports allowed us to produce strong guidance for policy makers and cooperative leaders relating to the current state of the legislations in those 5 countries relating to the deployment of efficiency services, and the potential evolutions following the publication of the Clean Energy Package.
Dissemination and Communication
Throughout the project REScoop PLUS our approach was to have the maximum impact at the local level, encouraging energy saving, behaviour changes, and the growth of the cooperative movement. The evolution and growth of the community energy movement in European and neighbouring countries, will results in a more efficient, fairer and cleaner energy system overall. Specifically, we showed through the REScoop PLUS project, that collective action is more efficient, more engaging and more sustainable for citizens.