Български DEESME project “Guiding SMEs and national authorities through the energy transition, taking profit of multiple benefits and energy management approaches”
DEESME project “Guiding SMEs and national authorities through the energy transition, taking profit of multiple benefits and energy management approaches”
The DEESME project "Guiding SMEs and national authorities through the energy transition, taking profit of multiple benefits and energy management approaches " is funded by Horizon 2020, in order to help small and medium-sized enterprises to engage in the energy transition by taking profit of multiple benefits from energy management and energy audit approaches and will provide national authorities with guidelines and recommendations to strengthen their national schemes.
For the implementation of the three-year project, launched in September 2020, is built a strong consortium of academics, research organizations, consultancies and government offices from Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Poland, namely: IEECP (NL, coordinator) FIRE ( IT), SOGESCA (IT), Fraunhofer ISI (DE), CLEOPA (DE), SEDA (BG), ECQ (BG), KAPE (PL), EEIP (BE).
In the European Union, several pieces of legislation aimed at guiding states and companies, regardless of their size, on ways to improve their energy efficiency: one of them is the Energy Efficiency Directive, establishing a common framework of measures and requirements with the goal to remove market barriers and promote a more efficient use of energy in supply and demand. Article 8 of the Directive 2012/27/EU offers ways to achieve this, requiring Member States to promote and facilitate the implementation of energy audits and energy management systems. Member States have all chosen different approaches to transpose the requirements into national laws and to support companies (trainings, websites, helplines and funding support schemes).
Conducting energy audits and implementing energy management systems can be a source of multiple benefits for companies if they take advantage of the wide potential deriving from their recommendations: reduced operating costs, increased productivity, improved working environment and much more. The audits are compulsory for large companies and recommended for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Improving energy efficiency is the most cost-effective way to reduce energy-related emissions, improve economic competitiveness and increase energy security.
Unlike large companies, SMEs have less technical, human and financial resources to improve their energy efficiency. Barriers have been deeply examined, including lack of awareness, low capital, difficulties to access funding, doubts about the actual potential for savings and lack of technical and human resources. To provide SMEs with technical resources such as methodologies, best practices, technology inventories and subsidies, national schemes exist. Some of the schemes introduce mandatory actions (energy analysis) to receive such subsidies. Nevertheless, national policy schemes have failed to convince SMEs that energy auditing is more than "bureaucratic performance" to contribute and encourage large companies to move from analysis to investment.
To overcome this, DEESME aims to:
a) Enabling companies to manage the energy transition by taking profit of multiple benefits and energy management approaches;
b) ) Supporting the development and implementation of energy efficiency EU policies in the framework of article 8 of the Energy Efficiency Directive, beyond the project, by providing national authorities with guidelines and recommendations on how to strengthen the national schemes;
c) Enhancing the adoption of the DEESME approach by National Authorities beyond the project timeline through the implementation of institutionalization activities.
DEESME will assist SMEs to develop and test the technical DEESME solutions by organizing information and training initiatives, releasing energy audits and implementing energy management systems starting from international standard and adding the multiple benefits energy efficiency approach.
For more information: https://www.deesme.eu/
