European Commission

General Directorate for Science and Research

APAS-RENA Programme - CT940065

General Directorate for Energy and Transport
THERMIE Programme - Type B Action - STR/1499/97-IT

Abstract

From the Action Plan for Renewable Energy Sources to the Development Strategies of the Industrial Areas in Europe.  RESET Project is intended to verify the feasibility of the penetration of renewable energies in four European metropolitan areas:

A.M.Barcelona, Glasgow, Grand Lyon, Torino, and St.Petersburg

Objectives

The RESET Project was intended to verify the feasibility of the penetration of renewable energies in four European metropolitan areas with peculiar conditions, such as:

- large industrial infrastructure to be strongly reconverted in the future;

- need for a major change in labour perspectives;

- high pollution levels and environmental vulnerability.

The proposal came from the Action Plan for Renewable Energy Sources worked out by the Commission of the European Communities for the European Parliament, that stimulated the cities involved in the RESET Project to develop an investigation on the feasibility of substituting 15% of the real primary energy consumption with renewable energy sources, within the year 2010.

The project was organised in four phases:

1. Background

2. Community Planning

3. General Planning

4. Conclusions and Recommendations

The Cities Acting in RESET:

"..... Why we are together in RESET? Because we are: - Non-capital industrial cities, but regional poles for local development with problems of reconversion;

- Strongly involved in environmental policies;

- Politically committed for cooperation and integration..."

(Gianni Vernetti - Deputy Mayor of Torino)

"..... RESET Project on renewable energies is an example of co-ordinated effort and many other directions could be explored before the year 2005, when Torino and Lyon will be better linked by the new high speed train..."

(Claude Pillonel - Vice-President of the "Communauté Urbaine de Lyon")

"..... Glasgow in the recent past has made strong efforts to overcome the productive crisis of mine and ship industries and has quite improved the quality of the urban landscape. Renewable Energies, as a matter of environmental consciousness, can be the following step..."

(James McCarron - Councillor, Convenor of the City of Glasgow)

"..... Barcelona, as all wide conurbations in Europe, has major problems concerning water supply, sewage and solid waste treatment and disposal, urban planning. But more and more, air pollution related to energy consumption is a central problem of the Metropolitan Area..."

(Guillem Massagué - Head of Environmental Serv., Area Metropolitana Barcelona)

"..... The City of St.Petersburg is very interested in the experience of the European Cities in the field of energy conservation and alternative production. The hope of St.Petersburg in participating in the RESET Project is to understand how energy conservation policies can be implemented on an urban scale and which technologies can be adopted, and which results obtained..."

(Alexei Deljukin - City Economy Management of Mayor's Office, St. Petersburg)

Background

The first phase was devoted to assess the resources on which the future of the four cities' economies lie, in order to transform the Renewable Energy strategy into local development, through the collection of existing main data and information on the energy and environmental system of the four industrial areas.

General Background of the Reset Cities

Common features were pointed out from the synthesis of the cities' backgrounds:

- Non capital industrial cities but regional poles for local development

- Large industrial areas with problems of re-conversion

- Strong involvement in environmental policies

- Political commitment for co-operation and European integration

- Energy and Environmental Balances

Reset cities have prepared a synthesis of their own energy and environment balances as well as a description of the adopted methodology. A common format for the energy balance was set-up in order to facilitate the understanding of local energy utilisation and the general planning.

Review of Renewable Energy Projects

Reset Cities have prepared a detailed compilation of the renewable energy projects under development or already implemented. Some considerations were drawn after this analysis:

- renewable projects are still micro-projects, with no specific policies

- renewable energy projects were mainly promoted and supported by the private sector

Community

Amongst the objectives of this task of the RESET project was to ensure the relevance of the project to the local communities and to form community partnerships which will play important roles in successfully establishing renewable energy projects. It was essential that the views of the local community were fully understood during the process of developing renewable energy strategies. The skills, expertise, knowledge and experience of the members of the local community should be used to ensure that the full benefits of renewable energies are realised by using an appropriate consultation technique.

Glasgow

The first of the four events, co-ordinated by ECD and the City of Glasgow, was held in Glasgow on 28th and 29th September 1995. The first day was attended by about 25 members of Glasgow's professional community, specially invited to represent the range of local interests and experience. The objectives of the first day were to represent a wide spectrum of interests in the development of renewable energy strategies. The activities during the first day included an informative talk on the key concepts of renewable energy technologies and a varied mixture of individual and group work including identifying the problems of Glasgow and the benefits of renewable energies, a planning game and the pledging of personal action plans. The objectives of the second day were to develop more specific ideas relating to a Renewable Energy Advice Centre (REAC) that could act as a focus for the Glasgow's future renewable energy activities.

Torino

RAVE, the Turin Community Planning event took place on 17th November 1995. The event was co-ordinated by SOFTECH, who attracted participants with an imaginative publicity leaflet which demanded 'Give me one good reason to attend RAVE!' followed by a list of '10 good reasons to come'. The program of events was based on the Local Scenario Workshop methodology. The most lively group was 'The Next Generation' (under 14 years old) who brought a fresh perspective to many of the issues. Each group was assisted by a facilitator, a provocateur and a note-taker.

At the end of each exercise, the groups came together to share their ideas and discuss their findings. Behind the scenes, the teams were processing the results on their portable computers, whilst the ideas were still fresh in their minds.

Grand Lyon

The Community Planning Forum for Lyon was held on 11th and 12th of December 1995, in the Council offices. It was planned and facilitated by the Department of Urban Development and by AGORA'. The majority of the participants, who attended by invitation only, had some previous interest in experience of renewable energies. The event format was unusual in French culture, since the participants were involved more actively than they would have been in a conventional meeting. The forum worked well and there was a good level of participant involvement. The impressive amount of presentations and displays ensured that all of those who attended had plenty of opportunity to improve their knowledge and understanding of the subject area.

Barcelona

The last Community Planning forum was held in Barcelona and hosted by the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona on the 8th and 9th of February 1996. The programme followed the principles used in the previous three events.

It was planned and facilitated by the Environmental Services of the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona, and by ICAEN, who were responsible for the Workshop reporting. The participation to the Barcelona event was very comprehensive, including professionals, managers, and political responsibles, who were asked to compile and debate a list of innovative energy policies.

General Action Plan

The General Action Plan defined operational schemes for the four cities, by assessing the feasibility and the effectiveness of energy substitution programmes in conjunction with the necessary investments, by documenting the technical feasibility, the reference technologies, and the fields of application. Job creation and new employment opportunities were also matters of investigation.

In each city the strategy concerning renewable energies was formalised, by bringing together politicians, decision makers, experts and citizens representatives. After having created various scenarios for the year 2010, with the selection of the mix of technologies to couple future quality of life and energy needs, the preferred scenario is detailed, taking into account the following:

• Renewable Energies Potential assessment

• Environmental impact assessment

• Employment effects and social opportunities

• Economic impact

• Responsibilities for managing the plan

The appropriate actions, as outcomes of the Community Planning events, were extracted from the ideas and proposals of such a consultation and included in the General Planning, with the following procedure:

After having developed the Local Scenario Workshops in all four cities, a task involving each city consisted of extracting the most promising "energy policies", among those discussed in the forum, and to translate them into "possible actions".

This activity required a screening, made by each city with their consultants, selecting those ideas which were realistically convertible into actions for the administration, in the short, medium and long term.

The translation of policies into actions was helped by an "action form", which included a pre-estimate of the potentiality, in terms of energy conservation or substitution.

Conclusions and Recommendations

In the last phase four forums for the public dialogue were created. Decision makers in a wide range of activities were brought into the dialogue regarding the results of both General and Community Planning and an initial package of measures was proposed to the citizens.

The following steps were included:

• Validation of the Renewable Energy Policy, having as a reference the participants to the Community Planning forums in the different RESET cities: a concise questionnaire, adapted to the different contexts, was proposed to the reviewers (local "carriers") to be filled in with their written amendments

• Local meetings with representatives of the municipalities (for the Area Metropolitana of Barcelona and for the Greater Lyon) and the representatives of the Municipal Districts (for Turin and Glasgow), in order to illustrate and receive comments on the list of actions which emerged from the study

• Revision of the proposed actions by local municipal responsibles and gathering of the proposed amendments from the Municipal (or sub-district) Councils.

Project Partners

Area Metropolitana de Barcelona

Mr. Ferran Relea

Area Metropolitana de Barcelona

Carrer 62 num. 16-18 Edifici B Zona Franca

E - 08040 Barcelona

tel.+34.3.2235151 - fax +34.3..2234583

Mr. Guillem Massagué

Area Metropolitana de Barcelona

Carrer 62 num. 16-18 Edifici B Zona Franca

E - 08040 Barcelona

tel.+34.3.2235151 - fax +34.3..2234583

City of Glasgow

Mr. James Mc Carron

Glasgow City Council

City Chambers - 42nd Cardonald Ward Glasow, G2 1DU

tel. +44.141.287.5663 - fax +44.141.287.5666

Mr. Brian Kane

Glasgow City Council

City Chambers - 42nd Cardonald Ward Glasow, G2 1DU

tel. +44.141.287.5240 - fax +44.141.287.5551

Grand Lyon

Mr. Claude Pillonel

20, Rue du Lac - BP3103

F - 69399 Lyon Cedex 03

tel. +33.78.634635 - fax +33.78.634078

Mr. Jean Villien

Head of Environmental Department

Communauté Urbaine de Lyon

tel. +33.78.634672 - fax +33.78.634970

City of Torino

Mr. Gianni Vernetti

Città Torino-Assessorato Ambiente

via Garibaldi, 23 - 10121 Torino

tel. +39.11.442.3003 - fax +39.11.5629032

Mr. Paolo Galliano

Azienda Energetica Municipale Torino

via Bertola, 48 - 10121 Torino

tel. +39.11.5549.410 - fax +39.11.538313

St. Petersburg City Government

Mr. Alexei S. Deljukin

tel. +7.812.2104932 - fax +7.812.3126238

Project Co-ordinator

Mr. Roberto Pagani

RESET e.e.i.g.

SOFTECH Energia Tecnologia Ambiente

via Cernaia, 1 - I - 10121 Torino

tel. +39.11.5622289 - fax +39.11.540219

e.mail: info@resetters.org

Associated Contractors

RESET e.e.i.g.

Mr. Roberto Pagani

SOFTECH Energia Tecnologia Ambiente

via Cernaia, 1 - I - 10121 Torino

tel. +39.11.5622289 - fax +39.11.540219

e.mail: info@resetters.org

Mrs. Anne Ged

AGORA' Analyses & Systèmes

Tech'Indus A-Z.I. Aix en Provence

13763 Les Milles, Cedex, France

tel. +33.4.42288683 - fax +33.4.42288563

e.mail: agora@agora-imv.com

Mr. Albert Mitja I Sarvisé

ICAEN Institut Català d'Energia

Avgda. Diagonal, 453 bis, Atic

E - 08036 Barcelona

tel. +34.93.6220500 - +34.93.6220502

e.mail: edificis@icaen.es

Ms. Nuria Reol

ICAEN Institut Català d'Energia

Avgda. Diagonal, 453 bis, Atic

E - 08036 Barcelona

tel. +34.93.6220500 - +34.93.6220502

e.mail: edificis@icaen.es

Mr. John Doggart

ECD Energy and Environment

11-15 Emerald Street, London WC1N3QL

tel. +44.171.405.3121 - fax +44.171.405.1670

e.mail: john.doggart@ecde.demon.co.uk

Mr. Simon Burton

ECD Energy and Environment

Rue Abbe Cuypers, 3

B-1040 Bruxelles

tel. +32.2.7412442 - fax +32.2.7347910