The new geopolitical reality forces us to re-think the entire energy sector and to focus on swift nature-friendly solutions for energy independence, resilience, renewables’ deployment, and energy security. Hence, the 2022 edition of our ‘Good Practice of the Year’ award is a timely and special one indeed. Why so? In this new context, good practices must be shared and spread faster than ever – global cooperation and alignment between actors, sectors and countries are key, and innovation processes require an accelerated pace.

Are you part of a successful project with a high transferability? Does your practice contribute to the acceleration of the energy transition? Are you aware of innovative solutions needed to solve the most topical issues that the energy world is confronted with today? Then we are eager to hear from you! Good practices in the well-established three categories can be handed in via our online submission forms:

• Environmental protection - This category includes but is not limited to practices that tackle nature and biodiversity protection, marine offshore environment conservation as well as emission reduction.
• Communication & engagement - We are looking for practices that are improving public engagement, energy system education, stakeholder consultations, dialogue processes or are inventing new communication tools or engaging energy games.
• Technical innovation & system integration - If you have developed a new solution in the realm of smart grids, information technology, system flexibility, energy modelling or in any other area that will help enhance our renewables-based energy system of the future, send your submission in this category.

Anyone is welcome to apply for the award, which aims to recognise the efforts of those who work towards the system integration of renewables in an inclusive and environmentally friendly way: NGOs, TSOs, project developers, regulators, permitting bodies and representatives of EU-funded projects alike. Once collected, the submissions are passed to our jury of energy experts, who duly evaluate the practices and select the forerunners.

And remember that our call for applications is a call for peace, for knowledge sharing and collaboration in times of crises because we at RGI are convinced that we can tackle the challenges ahead only with a united voice and a strong will for change.

The winners from the 2021 award were:

• Environmental protection - The Nature Conservancy, for their impactful tool that helps reconcile energy with nature and biodiversity, Site Wind Right.
• Communication & engagement - The Laboratory of Energy Policy at the University of Ljubljana, for their innovative project promoting decentralisation through renewable energy communities in remote areas, COMPILE.
• Technical innovation & system integration - The SoLAR Allensbach consortium, for creating a comprehensive flexibility package for an increased integration of renewable sources into the grid.

For more inspiration, you can visit our Best Practice Database, with 180+ examples of exemplary work in the field of grid development.