EnergizAIR

Year

2015

Organisation

APERe

Description

EnergizAIR is an international initiative aimed at providing easy-to-understand indicators that represent the current capacity for renewable energy production across Europe.


Objectives:

  • Emphasise the energy generation possibilities created by everyday weather conditions
  • Enhance people’s understanding of the capabilities and capacities of renewable energy production possibilities
  • Add qualitative energy information to the regular weather forecast to encourage people to utilise home-grown energy
  • Promote usage of home-grown energy as an element of grid management and a potential tool to relieve grid constraints

 

Main information:

The EnergizAIR project was set up in order to take information regarding renewable energy production from the engineering world and place it with consumers. By combining sets of country-specific data, such as energy consumption and renewable energy production data, EnergizAIR is able to create a set of indicators that demonstrate what percentage of the average household energy needs could be met renewably. These are represented graphically through “solar PV”, “solar thermal” and “wind” icons, with a percentage of how much energy/hot water could be provided by renewable sources. 

The project currently covers 10 countries and employs an easy to replicate “franchise” model for expansion to other countries. Three web papers, three newspapers, eight radio and eight TV channels from across Europe have reached six million citizens with EnergizAIR’s tool to date. The tool is also currently embedded as a widget on more than 200 websites. In addition, APERe has worked to train 80 weather team members to understand and explain the indicators to their audience, becoming ambassadors for the project.

By understanding what percentage of their energy needs could be coming from renewable energy sources in real time, the project has increased trust in the renewable energy sector and aims to significantly increase investment into renewable energy technologies across Europe.


Additional information:

  • A survey among 400 recipients of the indicators showed that EnergizAIR increased trust in renewables in more than 50% of the cases. Additionally, 45% felt encouraged to invest in renewable energy solutions
  • The Association for the promotion of renewable energy (APERe) is an independent Belgian organisation aiming to encourage the development and use of renewable energy sources within the context of a rational energy use. As a permanent education provider, APERe heads educational projects and field activities as well as constituting a network for academics and associations within Belgium

 

 

RGI gratefully acknowledges the EU LIFE funding support:

EU LIFE funding support Logo

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the LIFE Programme. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.