Rural Communities Showcase Sustainable Energy Initiatives
r.mannion | Thursday, April 8th, 2010 | No Comments »
Mayors and other representatives from 14 rural communities met in Italy on 11th March to share their experience in leading small scale renewable energy projects. The communities are all members of the RURENER network established, through funding from Intelligent Energy Europe, to link together and support rural communities across Europe who are working towards carbon neutrality. The 14 communities have already made substantial progress, building Combined Heat and Power (CHP) biomass plants, installing wind turbines and solar panels and introducing energy saving measures across municipal buildings. By publicising their work and tapping in to their experience it is hoped to encourage more rural communities to follow in their footsteps.
Ruralnet Futures, a partner in the consortium which is building the RURENER network, is using the latest collaborative Web 2.0 technologies to bringing the network to life.
Ruralnet Futures’ project manager, David Ellis, returned from Italy inspired by some of the initiatives already in use: “The meeting took place in Tirano, a small town in the heart of the Alps, where a biomass plant, fuelled by prunings from thousands of hectares of terraced vineyards that line the valley, provides heating and electricity for all public buildings. Previously the waste wood would simply have been burned – now it’s being turned into heat and power, saving on fossil fuels.”
“Across the 14 pilot communities there’s so much experience to share. However, with the communities spread across Hungary, Romania, Germany, France, Italy, Greece and Spain, the key challenge”, Ellis continues, “is to overcome the language barriers and bring geographically scattered communities together. We’re encouraging communities to record their progress though their own weblogs, and are providing language tools to translate case studies on the RURENER website. We’re also developing an online mentoring service to enable renewable energy specialists to advise communities, and offering a knowledge bank of tools and templates to help those beginning their carbon-neutral journey.”
