RegEnergyRegEnergy „ An insight into strong urban - rural partnerships across North-West Europe „ RegEnergy IMPRINT Published February 2021 Climate Alliance European Secretariat | Headquarters Galvanistr. 28 60486 Frankfurt am Main Germany T. +49 69 717 139 -0 E. [email protected] Editing Svenja Enke, Climate Alliance Hélène Rizzotti , Climate Alliance Susanne Brandt, Climate Alliance Dr. Birgit Haupter, INFRASTRUKTUR & UMWELT Katrin Leuenberger, INFRASTRUKTUR & UMWELT Design Susanne Brandt, Climate Alliance Klima-Bündnis der europäischen Städte mit indigenen Völkern der Regenwälder | Alianza del Clima e. V. Amtsgericht Frankfurt am Main | VR10149 |Ust.IDNr. DE244331692 | Vorstandsvorsitzende: Andreas Wolter & Tine Heys FOREWORD RegEnergy RENEWABLE ENERGY REGIONS Maximise the share of renewable energies in the production and consumption mix in 9 regions of North-West Europe – that is our aim. We are 9 project partners from seven counties and seek to improve the region‘s carbon footprint. An important task considering that NWE is one of the EU’s highest energy consuming regions, currently still heavily dependent on non-renewable energy sources. As different as we are – from metropolitan regions, cities, rural communities, regional agencies, scientific institutions and renewable energy producers - we all adopt one common approach: building strong partnerships that connect the rural production with the urban demand of renewables. On the following pages, we present our projects and provide insights into the challenges. We invite you to get inspired by our experiences! Discover possibilities for turning waste into renewable energy, for the active support of municipalities for energy communities, or for smart solutions that can help dealing with limited grid capacity and an intermittent renewable energy supply. You would like our support or to exchange ideas on how to build up your partnership? Please get in touch with us! For the whole RegEnergy team, Svenja Enke Lead Partner, Climate Alliance CONTENT About RegEnergy 9 Organise urban-rural partnerships for renewable energy 13 A nationwide network for renewable energy regions 15 Multifaceted agreement between city and countryside 19 Community-owned renewable energy 25 Towards a net zero carbon society 29 Connect renewable energy producers and consumers 33 Biogas from waste water supplies industrial consumer 35 Build a supply-demand chain for biomethan 41 Smart solutions for renewable energy growth 44 Reliable supply for high demand consumers 47 Interconnect photovoltaic energy and electric mobility 53 A smart platform to optimise supply and demand 57 Ernesettle solar array, Plymouth, United Kingdom ABOUT REGENERGY NORTH-WEST EUROPE RegEnergy RENEWABLE ENERGY – URBAN DEMAND & RURAL SUPPY Urban areas are heavy energy consumers with limited potential for renewable energy production. Rural areas have large capacities to offer renewable energy, but limited energy consumption. PARTNERSHIPS FOR RENEWABLE ENERGY – A WIN-WIN SITUATION Urban consumers meet their renewable energy demands from reliable regional supplies. Rural renewable energy producers get access to urban consumers. „ RegEnergy thus creates a win-win situation for rural producers and RegEnergy creates a urban consumers of renewable energies. win-win situation for rural producers & urban consumers of renewable energy. „ 8 9 THREE STRATEGIC FIELDS OF ACTION PARTNERS INVOLVED Manifold barriers stand in the way of urban-rural partnerships. • Climate Alliance (Lead Partner) | DE Bringing together the expertise of Metropolitan regions, cities, rural communities, regional energy agencies, scientific institutions and • Brest métropole with ALECOB,CCKB and VDB | FR renewable energy producers can help to tackle those barriers. • Flux50 with Ecopower and VUB |BE You will discover concrete examples of partnerships and projects • Plymouth City Council with Creacombe Solar CIC | GB which address main barriers preventing the urban-rural cooperation • Waterstromen Etten BV with Waterstromen | NL in the field of renewable energy: • 3 Counties Energy Agency | IE • PLANAIR | CH Organise urban rural partnerships for renewable energy • Waterford Institute of Technology with Údarás na Gaeltachta | IE The elaboration and implementation of optimal institutional and • Ormonde Upgrading Limited with Ormonde Organics Holdings Limited | IE administrative arrangements - such as cooperation agreements between cities and countryside – is necessary to overcome administrative barriers preventing urban-rural cooperation for renewable energy; EU cooperation areas Other cooperation areas Connect renewable energy producers and consumers Source: © EuroGeographics Association We observe decentralised and diversified producers of RE. Producers of RE are increasingly diversified and decentralised. The development of infrastructure networks - such as networks for heat and pipelines for transport of biogas from rural to urban areas - is necessary to connect them with consumers of renewable energy; Smart solutions for renewable energy growth Climate Alliance The development of technological solutions – such as smart grids or storage capacities – is necessary to manage the intermittent character of electricity production coming from regional wind and PV installations. 10 11 ORGANISE URBAN-RURAL PARTNERSHIPS FOR RENEWABLE ENERGY SOLAR WIND BIOGAS BIOMASS WASTEHEAT A NATIONWIDE NETWORK FOR RENEWABLE ENERGY REGIONS GERMANY methodology for „cumulating“ urban and peri- incomplete, due to the lack of empirical data. urban GHG emissions. Because of the different Data protection is another issue, as the basis of calculation methods currently used by diverse GHG calculations is municipal data. Often these stakeholders, there is no uniform accounting cannot be assessed at all, or only incompletely, basis for GHG monitoring. In Germany, the due to data protection reasons. „BISKO“ methodology (Bilanzierungs-Systematik Kommunal) is a standardised balancing method for local municipalities. It is recommended and partly used as a basis for subsidies, but „ Region it is not mandatory. Internationally, a kind of A better networking Rural and city regions all over Germany standard has emerged, but it is still interpreted of decentralized very differently in some cases. In the GHG stakeholders from Consumer / Demand by assessment of energy production, too, there All types is as yet no uniform accounting basis. But the German regions greatest difficulty in GHG monitoring is the data is needed. „ acquisition, which is time-consuming and often THE REGIONAL SETTING: CONTEXT AND CHALLENGES THE STRATEGY OF SUCCESS: BUILD A NATIONWIDE RENEWABLE ENERGY NETWORK Transforming the German energy supply requirements and to find compromise between system towards a regional full supply of the actors. Another issue in building a national renewable energies (RE) requires a better network for RE is the lack of structures: not Climate Alliance is therefore building a network percent energy efficient and renewable”. The connection between urban areas where the every region has a coordination office for urban- of German regions that explicitly promotes the regional association consists of 75 municipalities, energy demand is high, with surrounding rural rural planning or it is undersized. As a result, exchange of best practices, implementation which are very heterogeneous in terms of size, areas where capacities and land is available to there is often a lack of objectives, strategies and aids, and communication material between financial and human resources. The regional produce renewable energy. To do so, a better concepts for urban-rural projects. municipalities which are committed to association has developed an innovative networking of decentralized stakeholders from the transformation of their energy system “Regional Energy Concept”, which concentrates German regions is needed. Due to the important To better connect urban and rural areas towards a decentralized full supply of RE. on informal activities and promotes voluntary number of different actors with heterogeneous for the development of RE, a more precise The Regionalverband (regional association) cooperation, and organizes the cooperation of needs that would be involved in a potential RE observation of GHG emissions in both FrankfurtRheinMain is a frontrunner within the the players in the FrankfurtRheinMain region. network, a challenge is to reconcile their different types of areas is also needed, as well as a network due to its Regional Energy Concept “100 The Regional Energy Concept concentrates 14 15 Climate Alliance Edgar Bazing Galvanistr. 28 Frankfurt, Germany [email protected] on informal activities and promotes voluntary areas, and open space installations in certain REGIONAL PARTNERS • Regionalverband Region FrankfurtRheinMain cooperation. It organizes the cooperation of the planning area categories), or informal activities and its 75 member municipalities and 6 rural players in the FrankfurtRheinMain region. A large e.g. commissioning of studies, implementation INVOLVED districts; variety of measures are implemented by the of model projects and procurement of funding, • regional companies; regional association, such as the initiative “10,000 organisation and support of networking and roofs for the energy” or „Experience Energy - cooperation, participation in working groups, • associations, clubs; Climate Protection in the FrankfurtRheinMain provision of information and data bases • non-governmental organisations;