STEP Project
STEP - Improving Communities' Sustainable Energy Policy Tools
MWRA and Tipperary Energy Agency attend STEP kick-off seminar - 8th May 2012
The kick-off seminar for the STEP project was held in Pécs, Hungary on the 8th May 2012 and the MWRA and the Tipperary Energy Agency represented the Mid-West Region. The conference, organised by the project lead partner, the South Transdanubian Regional Innovation Agency (STRIA), presented case studies from all of the STEP project regions in relation to their Sustainable Energy policies and the implementation of those policies at local level. To download the agenda for the Conference, please click here. To download the presentation made by the MWRA, please click here. The Tipperary Energy Agency presented the progress to date made by North Tipperary County Council in making internal energy savings of 33% - to download the TEA presentation, please click here.
Th STEP project partners all attended and contributed to the conference and the first partner meeting of the STEP project was held on the 7th May in Pécs.
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The Mid-West Regional Authority has successfully joined a new European project, called STEP (Improving Communities’ Sustainable Energy Policy Tools). Following negotiations between the lead partner and the European Commission, the final project methodology and budget has been agreed and approved - the next steps will now be a kick-off meeting and conference hosted by the lead partner in Pécs, Hungary in April/May 2012.
The project aims to improve the implementation of local and regional policies aimed at meeting the EU’s 20-20-20 targets for energy. The specific project objectives are to:
- Improve the effectiveness of national and regional and local sustainable energy policies
- Exchange and transfer of policy practices and elaboration of a comprehensive interregional policy practice guide on local sustainable energy concepts and energy management systems
- Support the implementation of sustainable energy actions by identifying adequate financing possibilities
- Successful transfer of the developed interregional policy practices by elaboration of implementation plans in each partner regions
- Networking and interregional capacity building of local authorities’ staff in the field of sustainable energy planning and implementation
- Fostering subsidiarity and the cooperation between the different levels of policy decision making
The project, which includes nine partners from eight different EU regions, has a total budget of just over €1.5 million and an ambitious programme over the three years from Jan 2012 to Dec 2014.
Through this project, the MWRA will be looking closely at how it can adopt strategies to improve the implementation of existing regional energy policies (including the Mid-West Regional Planning Guidelines 2010 - 2022, the Regional Biomass Strategy and the Regional Climate Change Strategy as well as any future Regional Sustainable Energy Action Plan/Strategy) by sharing experiences and knowledge with the other project partners.
The other STEP partners are:
- STRIA - South Transdanubian Regional Innovation Agency Non-for-profit Ltd. (Hungary – lead partner)
- Kainuun Etu ltd (Finland) – we are also working with this partner on the FRESH and TRAP projects
- SAENA - Saxon Energy Agency (Germany)
- ARGEM- Regional Management Agency of Energy - Region of Murcia (Spain)
- SODEMASA - Ministry of Environment of the Government of Aragon (Spain)
- ARLEG – Regional Development Agency (Poland)
- Midlands Regional Authority (Ireland)
- Local Government of Mohács (Hungary)
The success of the project will be achieved by targeting two levels of policy implementation:
For further information, please contact Deirdre Byrne, EU Projects Officer, Mid-West Regional Authority (dbyrne@mwra.ie).
The STEP project is co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund under the Interreg IVC Programme
