<< Background >>The EU Skills Panorama identified Renewable Energy Sources related skill needs in agriculture crucial. It underlines the need for improving skills on “using renewable energy”. Green jobs are growing at double rate in Agriculture than other sectors, but there is indeed a lack of technical, management and legal skills needed to upkeep and maintain RES plants on a daily basis. With green deal and bioeconomy we could expect raising demand of skilled people in this area.<< Objectives >>The partners identify RES-related skills needs and provide training to fill in this gap for both professional and unemployed people. They aimed at developing attractive, ECVET certified training programme in country language, that will allows upskill and reskill workers in the of operation and maintenance for the following RES plants in agriculture: biogas, biomass and solar. By the implementation of the project we provide improved level of skills for employability and new business creation.<< Implementation >>The training setup by agriculture RES experts, address farmers, advisors, and students. The training is completely modular and divided into five modules: 1) ICT, 2) biogas and biomethane, 3) solid biomass and 4) solar thermal and 5) solar photovoltaic. It was developed following the innovative “flipped classroom” methodology, mixing online training modules, in-class modules, and work-based learning periods, and available in 5 languages.<< Results >>The project design 5 platforms, with about 400 h of blended training (online, in-class) per language. The languages supported are Dutch, English, French, German, Italian. About 230 people followed the training and were fully satisfied with the training. The course is certified by Piedmont Region, in Italy and is listed in the VET catalogue course. The training material is free of use. Users can follow from only one day up to the whole course (50 days).

The untapped potential of energy efficiency will be addressed by the GEAR@SME consortium by substantiating the role of a local Trusted Partner to bridge the gap between SMEs (demand side) and suppliers of energy services toward SMEs (supply side) such that SMEs will effectively undergo energy audits and implement energy saving measures. The Trusted Partner will be supported by the GEAR@SME methodology, which aims to catalyse the implementation of energy efficiency measures by taking a local, collective approach based on multiple benefits, tailored to the specific locality. After demonstrating the effectiveness of the common methodology in four use cases, large-scale rollout will be supported by an online platform offering documentation, stand-alone tools, and an interactive platform to support a Community of Practice for Trusted Partners. The GEAR@SME methodology will be tested and validated in four countries (Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Romania), reaching out to a minimum of 300 SMEs per location. While four locations will be targeted within the project as use case, another 80 locations will be reached through the communication and exploitation activities within project lifetime. Beyond project lifetime, another 600 locations will be reached through dissemination events and the online portal. The GEAR@SME consortium has extensive expertise on activating, organising and enabling SMEs to take energy efficiency actions, from concept to validation to implementation. The team includes research organisations (TNO, C-MAC), consultancies with expertise on SMEs and energy efficiency (CIT, CCS). Validation of the methodology will be carried out by CCS, C-MAC, BEA and SERVELECT all of whom have track records in engaging with SMEs on energy issues. Finally, an exploitation strategy and further roll out will be carried out by SYNYO and multiplier organisations (CNA, CLOK and TUCN).

BiogasAction aim to serve as vehicle for the development of the European biogas sector and thereby contribute to the EU 2020 targets by focusing on removing non-technical barriers to widespread production of biogas/biomethane from manure and other waste. Central driver is the cooperation between different policy levels at EU, national and regional level. The project will boost biogas development in the target regions in conjunction with replication efforts & promotion at broad EU scale. BiogasAction key activity & expected impact: • A web portal containing EU-wide biogas market overview, technical biogas and biomethane information and experience of EU/national biogas projects, case studies and free on-line/off-line biogas tools • Biogas and biomethane intervention strategy plans in the 9 target regions • Replication of the project in 5 EU countries/regions • A guidance document for investors about financing biogas/biomethane project and reducing investment risk. • A guidance document for policy and decision makers and for local authorities/municipalities, to enable them to improve national framework conditions for biogas and biomethane deployment • Definition and support of a total of 50 high quality, sustainable biogas projects in the 9 target regions. • 3 peer learning European workshops focusing on key competence areas (80 participants), 1 European roundtable about advanced biogas applications, organisation of at least 1 national energy info day in each target region, with more than 100 participants/event • 3-4 events/training courses per target region for public administration aimed to improve the framework, including follow-up of the recommendations • 2-4 events/training courses per target region aimed to raise the public acceptance • A local training package incl. use of training material from previous projects • Series of 6-8 trainings in each of the 9 target regions on specific topics for biogas plant operators • Final event on project achievements