After three years, AREA 21 now comes to an end. Throughout the past years, the Energy Improvement District concept has been developed and implemented in seven pilot regions. As a result, every EID is now equipped with two key documents:
- an EID Strategy outlining the district’s energy transition, and
- an Action Plan describing how the respective strategy can be realised through concrete actions.
While AREA 21 ends on 30 September, we are proud to announce that the work in the Energy Improvement Districts will continue. With AREA 21 + action, a one-year follow-up project has been approved, starting from 01 October. The main aims of the new project are to capitalise AREA 21 results and to institutionalise the cooperation processes in the EID. In detail, the new project will:
- promote the EID concept for potential adopters across Europe,
- begin to implement the Action Plans that were developed in AREA 21 for every EID, and
- facilitate the transfer and adoption of the AREA 21 smart technologies for citizen participation in district-level energy planning.
AREA 21 + action builds directly upon the main outputs of AREA 21 and the European energy efficiency targets, having a direct positive impact on sustainable development of the BSR cities and regions. It will aid the cooperative strategic planning and implementation of energy efficiency measures on the district level. AREA 21 + action aims at testing new cooperation approaches, including citizen involvement, to promote innovation in energy planning and implementation. The expected result is to enable (local) energy stakeholders to have better capacities in energy optimisation, thus improving energy efficiency in the whole Baltic Sea Region.