Presentation during the final conference of the EUKI project RENALDO – „Rural Development through Renewable Energy Sources” on 1-2 March in Warsaw

Source: Picture from the summary video of the RENALDO conference available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5kv_C6dqJ4&t=131s.

I was invited to present during the results of the comparative study of the Polish-German Energy Platform on energy communities in Poland and Germany.

Organisers of the conference  with the title “Energy cooperatives as part of a sustainable energy transition in rural areas”, were partners of EUKI project RENALDO as well as the Polish Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MRiRW), in cooperation with the National Agriculture Support Center Poland (KOWR). The conference concluded the RENALDO project and gathered more than 200 participants.

The event was opened by Ms Anna Gembicka, Secretary of State at the Polish Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Ms Nathalie Berger, Director for Support to Member State Reforms at the European Commission’s DG REFORM, and Mr Berthold Goeke, Deputy Director-General for National and European Climate Policy, at the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action. On the first day, participants had the chance to learn about the energy cooperative model and its advantages, and about experience from European energy cooperatives in Italy, Greece, Czech Republic and Germany. The following panel discussion focused on best practices from the RENALDO and involved communities in Poland. Relation from the event can be also found here.

My presentation during the conference, in pdf as well as a video, can be found on the KOWR-website (also other presentations in pdf and as videos are available on the KOWR-website). All presentations and discussions as well as a summary video from the conference, including an short interview with me, are also available on youtube (summary video and whole conference day 1 and day 2).

 

First time representing the German Energy Agency (dena)

From 27th to 29th of May I was a part of the delegation of the German Energy Agency (dena) to the 25th Energy & Environment Fair & Conference ICCI in Istanbul.

In 28th of May I took part in the meeting of the German-Turkish Working Group “Sector Coupling and Energy Infrastructure” with representatives from the Turkish Energy Ministry and gave a presentation on storage technologies in Germany, including large scale battery storage systems (BSS) and the concept of “Netzboosters” (grid boosters) (see dena’s Twitter below). On the next day I participated in the conference on storage technologies in Germany and Turkey with German and Turkish experts. 

Both events were organized jointly be the dena and the German-Turkish Chamber of Commerce and Industry. It was a pleasure to be a part of the organization team as well as to share with the Turkish colleagues the knowledge about current situation and developments concerning storage of energy in Germany. I have also lernt a lot about the Turkish electricity system and the role of renewables. I am looking forward to the next meeting of the Working Group in Berlin!

First FFU book project workshop “Low-carbon Energy Transitions”

ffu-logo-final1The workshop is going to take place at the Environmental Policy Research Centre (FFU) at the Free University of Berlin on 14 February. The title of my conference paper, presentation and working title of my chapter is: “Germany: Energiewende going local?”.

Working title of the whole book is: “Energy policy in a carbon-constrained world”.

From the book editors proposal:

In all of the countries the book looks at, we see movements towards the promotion of low-carbon energy systems. Yet, without support from and implementation on the local level these policies or visions of energy policy in a carbon-constrained world cannot be translated into reality. A range of questions, in all phases of energy policy making – from agenda-setting to implementation – are indeed linked to the local level and its contribution to policy change in the field of energy. The book therefore aims to answer the question of whether the local level is a driver or an obstacle to energy transition/low-carbon energy policies and their implementation in the XY countries selected.