SO 2.1 : Promoting energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions

Territorial challenges and opportunities

Due to its high energy consumption, the North-West Europe (NWE) region is key to reach the EU’s target of an increased overall energy efficiency of 32,5% until 2030. Various fields show a high potential for improvement. Energy performance levels in buildings and in transport are still too low. Furthermore, the deployment of decentralised energy production and smart energy systems such as smart grids and smart meters needs to be improved. The Programme seeks to increase the capacity of NWE communities to improve energy efficiency and to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Objectives

Within this Specific Objective, the Programme aims to support projects that:
• Address opportunities to increase the energy performance in different sectors (e.g., dwellings and public buildings, transport or mobility, Inland Waterway Transport, as well as of district heating and cooling network lines).
• Address opportunities for the promotion of smart energy systems (storage and distribution).
• Address opportunities for the prevention of energy poverty.

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Energy poverty has been deemed a major challenge by the European Commission and “lifting vulnerable citizens out of it is an urgent task for the EU”. EU-surveys in 2021 found that energy poverty applied to up to 125 million citizens already. Due to r...

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CAMINO

Blueprinting Automated Mobility on-Demand Deployment for Sustainable Public Transport

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Project news

Promoting energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions

SO 2.1 aims to increase the capacity of NWE communities to exploit potential for improving energy efficiency by identifying opportunities that increase the energy performance.
The EU has formulated a binding target to increase energy efficiency (Directive (EU) 2018/2002 2018) and to reduce GHG emissions to at least 55% below 1990 levels by 2030. The NWE area takes part to this overall effort.

According to the territorial analysis, there are various fields of intervention with high potential for improving the overall energy efficiency of the NWE area. Energy performance in buildings and in transports is still low in many programme areas. Similarly, the effectiveness of new energy storage systems is still hampered by the lack of cost-effective technologies and of harmonised grid solutions and financing schemes. Furthermore, despite the potential of the NWE area in terms of digital infrastructure and services (from the distribution grid to the retail market) the deployment of decentralised