PATRES is a European project under the program IEE (Intelligent Energy Europe) which runs from May 1, 2010 to 30 April 2013. 7 countries participate in PATRES namely Italy, Austria, Spain, Romania, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia and the coordinator of it being AREA from Italy From Romania a notable partner is The Polytechnic University of Bucharest.
ALEA is a member in PATRES board and it is an active participant in all meetings held in Romania.
PATRES project’s main objective is to support local authorities, suppliers, utilities and and social housing blocks administrators (the three target groups of project) to implement obligations and policies for achieving minimum legal contribution regarding the use of renewable energy sources and regulations for new construction or rehabilitation or construction of infrastructure procurement standards, in accordance with the EU directive to increase the use of RES in the member states (until 2020, in Romania’s total energy consumption, the share of RES should be at 24%).
To accomplish the project objective, a training program that includes training and education will be achieved in each of the seven countries partners involved in the project.
A set of best practices will be selected based on analysis of previous projects that were funded by the European Commission, which are published on an online database. Training materials will also be selected from European or national projects.
A comprehensive training program has been developed (held in January 2011 January 2012), common to all partners of this program. Reference materials will be represented during training courses. Courses will be tailored to specific needs of respective countries with the support of the National Consultative Groups, which includes representatives from the three target groups of the project.
At the end of the training courses, a joint international conference will be held in Rijeka (Croatia) in 2012, where the authorities invite teachers in the RES domain. The conference will also include brokerage event (mediation) to encourage participants to interact between various training courses, conducted in all the partner countries of PATRES.
After that 28 pilot actions will be selected, each including more than one beneficiary, from different countries. Examples of such actions are pilot case studies, compulsory introduction of RES regulations and standards in the building sector, another example is the improvement of regulations on the introduction of RES in public procurement. The selected pilot actions will improve the expert partners” experience as well as visits and meetings which are to be organized in order to get knowledge of the best practices.
A final conference will be held in Bucharest in 2013 to present the results of the project, the best pilot actions and a guide that will summarize the experience gained within the project. PATRES program will then be disseminated to all partner countries, with support from national and regional authorities. At European level, the model will be presented to the Association of the
European Municipalities, as well as to European, national, regional and local governments, through European initiatives such as the Covenant of Mayors in Europe. Project website: www.patres.net
