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Renewable Energy 75 (2015) 512e518

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Renewable Energy

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Stakeholders involvement for energy conscious communities: TheEnergy Labs experience in 10 European communities

Jolanta Dvarioniene a, *, Inga Gurauskiene a, Giedrius Gecevicius a, Dora Ruth Trummer b,Catarina Selada c, Isabel Marques c, Carmelina Cosmi d

a Kaunas University of Technology, Institute of Environmental Engineering, K. Donelaicio str. 20, LT-44239 Kaunas, Lithuaniab Slagelse Municipality, Center for Technique and Environment, Dahlsvej 3, 4420 Korsør, Denmarkc INTELI, Intelligence in Innovation, Innovation Centre, Av. Conselheiro Fernando de Sousa, 11, 4, 1070-072 Lisbon, Portugald National Research Council of Italy, Institute of Methodologies for Environmental Analysis, CNR-IMAA, C.da S. Loja Z.I. Tito Scalo (PZ), I 85050 Potenza, Italy

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Received 27 January 2014Accepted 7 October 2014Available online

Keywords:Energy conscious communitiesEnergy labsStakeholders' involvementSustainable communities

* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ370 37 30 07 67.E-mail addresses: jodvar@ktu.lt (J. Dvarionien

(I. Gurauskiene), giedrius.gecevicius@ktu.lt (G. Ge(D.R. Trummer), catarina.s@inteli.pt (C. Selad(I. Marques), carmelina.cosmi@imaa.cnr.it (C. Cosmi).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2014.10.0170960-1481/© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

a b s t r a c t

In the framework of the INTERREG IVC RENERGY project an innovative methodology was devised toexploit stakeholder involvement on energy and environmental decisions at community level and toincrease community acceptance. It is based on the “Living Lab” paradigm applied to policy making as apowerful instrument to encourage and coordinate stakeholder engagement. The paper describes thepreliminary stakeholder analysis performed and the application of “Energy Lab” concept to elevendifferent EU communities (Kaunas e LT, Torre Vedras e PT, Potenza e IT, Slagelse e DK, Durham andSheffield e UK, Tulln e AT, Szentes e Hu, Jaslo e PL and Avrig e RO) with the purpose of identifyinggaps and needs at regional level, share the knowledge through the discussion of exemplar case studies,maximize the transfer of good practices for the regional implementation plans and derive effective policyrecommendations. The results show that the Energy Labs can give a sound basis for a future dialogue anda long lasting co-operation among the different parties and can be therefore considered an investment inthe future at community level. At interregional level the comparison of the experiences among differentcountries helps to highlight the different motivations and aspirations of the various communities as wellas the main common barriers in the implementation of renewable energy and energy efficiencystrategies.

© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Energy system sustainability is a demanding challenge thatshould be faced by EU and local governments with coordinatedefforts so as to cope with multiple aspects concerning both energyand environmental themes (e.g. energy independence and security,climate change mitigation, environmental quality) [1]. In thisframework, energy efficiency and renewable source deploymentrepresent key priorities. Moreover, social awareness is fundamentalto foster significant behavioural changes, and the diffusion of newand more efficient technologies, such as energy-conscious com-munities, can drive local energy systems towards a low-carbonconfiguration [2].

e), inga.gurauskiene@ktu.ltcevicius), drtru@slagelse.dka), isabel.marques@inteli.pt

The general framework of the long-term EU policy vision isoutlined in the European Union strategy for a sustainable devel-opment [3e5] and, more recently in the Europe 2020 strategy [6]focused on knowledge and innovation, competitive economy, so-cial and territorial cohesion as keystones to promote a smart, sus-tainable and inclusive EU growth. In particular, a sustainabledevelopment and an inclusive growth are addressed by sevenflagship initiatives presented by the Commission, among which themost interesting in the energy context is “A resource-efficientEurope e Flagship initiative under the Europe 2020 Strategy [7].The strategy “Europe 2020” outlines the EU's actions and the threeheadline targets to be achieved by 2020 to address climate changeand the energy requirements: to cut greenhouse gas emissions by20%, to generate 20% energy from renewable sources and cut en-ergy consumption by 20%. The long-term vision is to transform theEU into a competitive low-carbon economy and in this frameworkrenewable energy and energy efficiency are essential because theyallow reducing fossil fuel consumption and, consequently, CO2emissions. The local scale is a strategic dimension to translate the

J. Dvarioniene et al. / Renewable Energy 75 (2015) 512e518 513

EU political orientation into concrete actions due to the decen-tralized nature of energy efficiency and renewable applications, andthis can represent an opportunity to boost local economy.

In this framework EU and national authorities are asked to co-ordinate their efforts and foster the involvement of local authoritiesand citizens in order to achieve a sustainable and lasting devel-opment of the entire Europe based on a democratic process.

This strategic vision is supported by many international pro-grammes and initiatives that promote the participation of localcommunities in voluntary programmes on sustainable energy andclimate by indirectly boosting the stakeholders' participation in thedecisional processes. In fact, the stakeholders can deeply influencethe decision-making process and their involvement in the differentstages of the planning process is essential to come to a sharedpolicy vision [8,9].

The transposition of European policies to country level hasgenerally a higher economic impact on Eastern countries where anew economic and politic paradigm has been affirmed after theiraccession to EU, thus fostering the transition from centrally-planned economies to market economies. However, generallyspeaking, the privatization process has reinforced the financialposition of their energy companies and increased the importance ofthe renewable energy sources, with positive impacts on economicgrowth and employment.

However, the complexity of the regional energy systems, themultiple and different point of views of stakeholder groups and thedifferent backgrounds could hinder a successful implementation ata local scale of the EU, national and regional legislative framework.In fact, there is a huge difference between the EU countries, interms of socio-economic, infrastructural and cultural conditions. Inaddition to that, sustainability has multiple economic, political,environmental and social aspects that should be evaluated indecisional processes by the integration of supply and demand sidein order to devise suitable solutions.

The Covenant of Mayors is one of the most significant initiativeslaunched by the European Commission to support the imple-mentation of the 20-20-20 targets at a local scale, in which localand regional authorities have voluntarily committed themselves toincreasing energy efficiency (EE) and renewable energy (RES) ontheir territories [10]. Other important initiatives that encouragecommunities to contribute to a sustainable energy developmentare the Sustainable Energy Europe Campaign, the European Sus-tainable Energy Week (EUSEW) (European Union e SustainableEnergy Week, 2014) and a variety of energy awards that recognisethe progress made by local authorities and encourage exchange ofexperience and networking.

In addition to that, community acceptance is fundamental tofoster the implementation of renewable and more efficient tech-nologies and that is usually underestimated in the definition ofplanning strategies and roadmaps [11] that can greatly beneficiatefrom the active involvement of stakeholders.

The “Energy Labs” concept, developed and applied in theINTERREG IVC Project “Regional Strategies for Energy ConsciousCommunities e RENERGY” [12], represents a novel approach tostakeholder commitment that aims at informing and involving thecommunities actively on the ongoing initiatives as well as athighlighting and discussing needs and opportunities.

This paper illustrates the methodological approach followedand the first outcomes of the Energy Labs organised in theRENERGY project partners' communities.

2. The methodology

The Energy Labs foster the stakeholder commitment at a locallevel in order to address local gaps and needs by integrating policy-

making and business development issues so as to work out sus-tainable and feasible strategies. Energy Labs could contributeeffectively to the fulfilment of the main aims of a project or aplanning process through the creation of a common understanding(Fig. 1).

The Energy Labmethodology is based on the Living Lab or LivingLaboratory concept e that integrates concurrent research andinnovation processes within a public-private-people partnership(the so-called Public-Private-People Partnership e 4P), makingthem operative in a territorial context (e.g. city, agglomeration,region), [13e15].

Living Labs involve user communities, not only as observedsubjects but also as a source of innovation. This approach allows allthe involved stakeholders to concurrently consider both the globalperformance of a product or service and its potential adoption byusers [16]. Living labs constitute an experiential environment,which could be compared to the concept of experiential learning,where users are immersed in a creative social space to design andexperience their own future [17]. Living labs are also used by policymakers and users/citizens for designing, exploring, experiencingand refining new policies and regulations in real-life scenarios toevaluate their potential impacts before their implementations.

The Living Lab concept was initially developed and applied byWilliam J. Mitchell, Kent Larson, and Alex (Sandy) Pentland at theMassachusetts Institute of Technology [18] that understood itsgreat methodological value to try, validate, refine and implementprototypes and complex solutions in a real life context [19].

Living Labs are also useful for finding out the community needsin order to make the necessary improvements for the regionaldevelopment and integration of actions of different stakeholders'groups [20].

The utilization of Living Lab methodologies is become verypopular and increasingly important, because of the following rea-sons: open innovation; innovative approach to involve the com-munity [21], direct transfer of research results and scenarios intoreal life conditions with stakeholders (citizens and/or institutions)that have some experience or an interest in particular issues. Thismethodology is designed to favour the integration of stakeholders'ideas, interests or objections and to ensure a better acceptance,dissemination and implementation of the results of a project. Themain objective is the analysis of real people, institutional andspatial context, in order to find the best solutions for a successfulimplementation of new projects and initiatives. In fact, the solvingof common problems by collectively-developed solutions whichtake the specific contextual nature into consideration could help toavoid unexpected obstacles in the implementation phase. Inparticular, the active involvement of the community is useful tosupport the ongoing activities, monitor the project development aswell as contribute to the achievement of results [1]. In fact, theoriginality of the Living Labs is strongly based on the awareness ofusers and the real-life settings to identify a physical or virtualenvironment in which stakeholders are involved to create, proto-type, validate, and test new technologies, services, products, andsystems. Thus, the outcomes of living labs are expected to berepresentative and have a good potential for transferability [15].

In this context, Energy Labs could support innovation in a“softer” way depending on the objectives and the expected out-comes. To this issue the organization of an Energy Lab requires aclear identification of the overall objective and the type of event(meetings, conferences, thematic workshops, fairs, etc.) and themethodology formaximizing the community participation [22] andto ensure that stakeholders' inputs are properly managed. A thor-ough analysis of the project/planning process is therefore necessaryto identify the specific purposes of the Energy Labs in relation to thecritical phases and the main issues to which the stakeholders are

Fig. 1. The Energy Lab paradigm.

Fig. 2. Stakeholders' overview.

J. Dvarioniene et al. / Renewable Energy 75 (2015) 512e518514

expected to contribute, as well as to clarify the methods forinvolving stakeholders. A further step of utmost importance con-cerns the analysis of the outcomes of the Energy Labs that shouldhighlight the stakeholders' contribution and their recommenda-tions. To this issue an exhaustive reporting documentation shouldfollow including the list of participants, a short report on the event,presentations, photos and other related informative material.

The stakeholders' involvement [23] is the core of Energy Labworking methodology. It is generally defined as a process by whichan organization involves everybody who takes an interest (or“stake”) in a decisional process in order to foster the acceptance ofpolicy and measures, to get contribution and support as well asmanage possible conflicts and oppositions.

The analysis and selection of the possible stakeholders stronglydepend on the specific purpose of the Energy Lab: in particular,their role in the planning process should be defined carefully inorder to identify a supportive and motivated stakeholder set.

In fact, stakeholders involvement helps to enlighten communityproblems from several points of views, and in some cases it makepossible to define common goals or a common path towards sus-tainability. This helps to motivate stakeholders participation and topromote their active support. In particular, in some situations thisprocess can contribute to the definition of effective solutions and/orto foster a broader acceptance of policy and measures. As a mainconsequence, stakeholders role is empowered and the networkestablished among the stakeholders during the process could befavourable for all the involved people, fostering a structuredcooperation in further initiatives.

The underlying principles for an effective stakeholders'commitment are to valorise their knowledge of specific issues andtake advantage of their capability of influencing the policy-makingprocesses [24]. This is where lies the essential difference fromcommunication processes that seek to issue a message or influencegroups to agree on well-established decisions. In fact, stakeholderscould be affected by project outcomes and policy decisions, and atthe same time they can have an impact on the implementation ofpolicy and measures. Therefore, they can support or hinder aproject, be influential in the organization or within the community,in which the project operates, hold relevant information, officialpositions or be affected in any of these terms in the longer run.Furthermore, to maximize their contribution the stakeholdersshould be involved at the beginning of a project and in all thecrucial decisional phases.

According to the Community-Based Strategic Planning [25,26]stakeholders should represent groups from all levels of commu-nity and government, including:

� Groups with access to power e political representatives of na-tional and local authorities and financial institutions.

� Groups with technical knowledge e people with justice back-ground, planning and community mobilization skills, access to

information and training about planning, promising programs,etc.

� Citizens affected by the policy decisions and who live theproblem from the ground level e local community membersand community leaders.

� Local investors e other groups and individuals with access tomaterial resources whose support is necessary to the successand implementation of the initiatives, such as the businesscommunity, civic groups and NGOs, state and federal or regionallawmakers.

In the stakeholders' involvement process it is fundamental tocharacterize a clear frame for their successful commitment andagree on the participation rules (for instance which decisions canbe influenced by stakeholders) to delineate and understand eachparty's role. A precondition is to consider their possible interests,objections, and motivations as well as their possible role in thedecision-making process.

A preliminary brainstorming should be performed to identify alist of possible stakeholders among the different interest groupsaccording to their political, economic, social interests in the project,knowledge and skills background, advantages and disadvantagesthat the stakeholders may have when involved in the process(arising from the project itself or its outcomes), possible opponentparties.

Brainstorming can be done individually or in a group, but thebest results are often achieved by combining these two methods. Ameeting with different people involved in the project or in theplanning process with different roles/contact areas should beorganized in order to enlighten all the possible aspects that have animpact on the stakeholder identification [27].

J. Dvarioniene et al. / Renewable Energy 75 (2015) 512e518 515

There are several ways to identify the possible stakeholders,such as mind mapping [25], reverse mind mapping, brain-writingetc. Pre-defined ice-breaker questions and instruments can beprepared to encourage the participants' vision. The ideas collectedduring the session can be recorded on flip charts, whiteboards, orcomputers in order to come to a draft stakeholders list. Criticismand evaluation of ideas during the brainstorming session should beavoided because this can stifle creativity and cripple the freerunning nature of a good brainstorming session.

After the brainstorming, a visual overview/matrix of thedifferent stakeholders' power and importance is useful in order tohighlight their influence in the project (very important/little po-wer; very important/big power; not important/little influence; notimportant/big power) (Fig. 2) and define the final stakeholder list.

In the framework of Energy Lab, the stakeholders' analysis isfinalized to get the best way of involving the different groups (e.g.direct interviews, restricted expert meetings, public events, etc.)and consequently their role in each Energy Lab. Table 1 collects themain issues to be considered in a deeper analysis. The in-depthanalysis can ease the decision of how and when the stakeholderscan be involved (e.g. in the elaboration of the phase, consultationabout the draft products, decision making about different devel-opment paths/options etc.). Transparency is another importantaspect that contributes to the success of the stakeholders'involvement. In fact, trusting the stakeholders, being open abouttheir motions and setting a clear frame for their involvement canease the process.

3. The Energy Labs of the RENERGY project: objectives andmain results of the first round

In the context of the RENERGY project, the Energy Labs weredesigned to represent key building blocks of the interregionalcooperation which constitute a fundamental tool for the analysisand the diffusion of the project themes as well as the developmentof sustainable energy policies at a local level. Moreover, besidestheir usefulness in the local communities, the analysis of compa-rable experiences in different territorial contexts can provide anadded value to the development of generally applicable strategies.

Three Energy Labs per partner were planned in the RENERGYproject according to the main project milestones: Build up theknowledge; Share the knowledge and discuss the knowledge. In amore general view, they were designed to support the main plan-ning phases: the identification of gaps and needs at a regional level,discussion of the case studies and the transferability of exemplargood practices for the definition of customized regional imple-mentation plans in the partners' territories, so as to maximize thetransfer of knowledge through the definition of sound policyrecommendations.

In brief, RENERGY Energy Labs focused on the following mainpoints:

� To inform and mobilize the community on possible solutions inorder to maximize Renewable Energy Sources (RES) and EnergyEfficiency (EE);

Table 1Summary table for stakeholders' analysis.

Stakeholdercategory

Advantages thatthe stakeholdermay have wheninvolved/contributeto the project

Disadvantages thatthe stakeholdermay have wheninvolved/contributeto the project

Evaluation of thestakeholdersposition/contribution

……….. …………… ………………. ………….

� To encourage local businesses in order to promote and developproducts, services and technologies for EE and RES;

� To identify tools for project partners in order to promote solu-tions on EE and RES;

� To identify local/regional good practices and discuss the trans-ferability of good practices of the partners' countries;

� To identify opportunities and barriers for their implementation.

According to these objectives, the stakeholders' involvementcan noticeably contribute to three crucial project phases (that are ingeneral the fundamental phases of every planning process): initialdiagnosis (selfeassessment and selection of exemplar good prac-tices); definition of implementation plans for the implementationof transferable good practices and definition of policy recommen-dations (Fig. 3.). Moreover, as one of the main objectives of theRENERGYproject is the transfer of good practices between partners,stakeholders' involvement contributed to foster a right imple-mentation of good practices to the respective regional contexts.

The first round of Energy Labs was held in the September2012eJanuary 2013 period, present the project facts to the localcommunity. The overall objective was to “define the problem”

starting from the community's and the stakeholders' needs as wellas to find out local/regional best practices to be shared within theRENERGY partnership. This common understanding was reflectedin the general issues debated in each Energy Lab that was focusedon specific territorial issues concerning renewables, energy effi-ciency, climate protection.

Table 2 reports the main common issues discussed.According to communities' needs and cultural background,

different types of events were organised. The most popular weretechnical workshops including selected groups of stakeholders andthematic experts to discuss in depth opportunities and criticalitiesat a local level. Some partners organized public events addressed toa broader audience with a relatively open agenda. On the whole, 8workshops, 3 larger events/conferences, 4 larger meetings and 2smaller meetings with a number of selected stakeholders wereorganized. In particular, the Association of Municipalities PolishNetwork “Energie Cit�es” (PNEC), a support structure of the Conventof Mayors in Poland, organized a larger meeting on “Energy Stra-tegies for Municipalities”, with the participation of local key actors,whereas the Building-For-the-Future and Durham City Council(both from UK) gave emphasis to the local community membersalready engaged in energy projects, highlighting in their EnergyLabs the additional opportunities that the RENERGY project couldbe able to support.

Among the events that involved the community actively, the“Do-it-yourself” Symposium “ organised in Szentez, Hungary” andthe “Vand-og Energimesse” (Energy Fair) organised in Slagelse

Fig. 3. Energy Labs and planning phases.

Table 2Summary of issues discussed in the RENERGY Energy Labs.

Culture AcceptanceEnergy background

Demand Local MarketPricesMarket barriers

Economy and Investments Financing RES and EE interventionsLevel of return of investmentsMarket uncertainties

Environment Natural heritageImpacts

Infrastructures Electrical gridSpecific needs

Legislation Current politicsFuture politicsLegal barriers

Local Resources Endogenous resourcesManpowerTechnologyCompetition

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Denmark, focused on parents and kids withmore than 1100 visitorsof whom 70 kids and their parents, aroused a great interest anddemonstrated to be very helpful to stimulate the communities'interest in renewable energy and efficiency. Table 3 reports themain features of the first round of Energy Labs by partners.

The events were attended by local and regional administrationrepresentatives, academic and other educational institution mem-bers, power supply companies, private companies, energy agencies,branch organizations, environmental associations and privatecitizens.

The number of participants (Fig. 4) was highly dependent on thetype of event. The average audience of most of the workshops wasaround 20 participants. The higher participation rate was achieved,obviously, in public events (e.g. the Conference organised by Kau-nas, Lithuania, the Public seminar and technical workshop ofPotenza, Italy, the Energy Fair, of Slagelse, Denmark in which thekids e target audience e amounted to 70 children).

The second and the third round of Energy Labs will be held inthe second part of the project. The second Energy Lab will focus onthe exemplar best practices identified as relevant to boost energyefficiency and renewable energy policy in the local communities inthe framework of the implementation plans (the final output of theRENERGY project), whereas the third Energy Labs is expected toqualify the implementation plans in the form of policyrecommendations.

4. Conclusions and policy implications

The overall objective of Living Lab concept is the integration ofthe community as an active player into policy design and problemsolving process, thus establishing a positive and long-lastingcooperation. The application of this concept should be, therefore,customised with respect to the issues and the problems to besolved. Nowadays the Living Lab concept has been comprehen-sively used in many fields among which it is worth noting theconcept design [28]; the support to an intensive use of IT tech-nologies in e-Government [29]; the support to innovation [30]; theintegration of the customers into the creation of new products [31].Its application to the energy sector due to the complexity of energy-related issues and the multiple stakeholders' points of view shouldbe carefully addressed, in order to integrate different needs andattitudes and maximise the potential contribution of the differentstakeholder categories. It should be also taken into account thatmost of them are also the beneficiaries of the energy strategies. Infact, depending on the issue that is to be worked with and the

nature and stage of the project/problem to be solved, the involve-ment of stakeholders can be a tool for democratic bottom-up pro-cess or a tool for a consensus building process. It is crucial for asuccessful strategy to define and communicate clearly the aim andthe framework of the process. In this way it is possible to createtransparent and optimal conditions thatmaximise the stakeholdersrole and their expected contribution. The definition of the “rules ofthe game and the selection of the most representative categories”represent, therefore, a crucial point of the process. In fact, a broaderparticipation of all the groups of interest that valorise their exper-tise, their deep knowledge of the territory, its criticalities and po-tentialities as well as the communities' expectations andmotivations, can be helpful to exploit the community inputs to thepolicy making process. However, a customised strategy should bedefined to avoid redundancies as well as manage the possibleconflicts between different groups. To this issue, it should be takeninto account that sometimes stakeholders can provide negativefeedback that could be hard to be taken in. Despite that, theircontribution is useful to learnmore about problems, difficulties andbarriers, and their opinion is always valuable towork out sound andcustomized measures that avoid future problems.

However, Energy Lab is the new and innovative measure forcommunity involvement which has been implemented in everyregion analysed since the RENERGY project started. It is anticipatedthat Energy Labs swill contribute to the community involvementnot only as a separate event, but it will help to create the strategiesfor the community involvement actions and their implementation.

The analysis shows that some of the countries are very advancedin the communication with the community members throughvarious established centres for information and consultation andother well-planned initiatives, ensuring the high rate of theinvolvement of the community in Energy sector. In particular,Austria, Denmark Germany and United Kingdom with a longtradition on energy and climate issues and active community as-sociations, utilised the RENERGY Energy Labs to increase theeffectiveness of already existing initiatives. The less experiencedcountries, strongly motivated by the increasing problems related tosecurity of energy supply and environmental protection, found theEnergy Lab experience very useful to motivate their communitiesand to provide a sound basis for a future dialogue and co-operation.

Important aspects need to be considered in every region beforeconsidering the implementation of particular community involve-ment action: integrity, visibility, transferability, accessibility/avail-ability, transparency, correspondence to the needs andexpectations of the community, the target group of the community.

The responsibility on the community involvement actions dif-fers from region to region:municipality, energy providers, scientificorganisations and NGOs are the typical stakeholders initiating andimplementing the community involvement actions. The distribu-tion of the community involvement responsibility is very laudable,nevertheless the coordination of the community involvement ac-tions need to be performed because of the coordination of thedifferent actions and intention to avoid the duplication of previouscampaigns. It is identified that the overload of the informationwithout an evaluation of the current need of the residents couldhave a negative impact as the community could become indifferentto the information related to the particular theme: at this case e

RES and EE. Furthermore the coordination of community involve-ment actions could ensure the effective usage of the monetary andhuman resources.

In this framework, the implementation of the Energy Labs in thedifferent European regions of the RENERGY partners disclosed themain advantages and the methodology potential at a regional levelin order to work out the local problems and achieve a broaderconsensus on sustainable energy strategies. As a general

Table 3The aim and results of the 1st round of Energy Labs in different regions.

Region Event Aim of Energy Lab Participants Main results

Potenza IT � Public seminar andtechnical workshop

� To identify needs and opportunities at locallevel concerning the energy sector.

� Politicians� Selected

stakeholders� Local experts

� Increased awareness by citizens about energythemes;

� Identified problems and opportunities at locallevel.

Tulln-AT � Seminarand technicalworkshop

� Identification of local and regional issuesrelated to energy policy

� Selectedpoliticians

� Local experts

� Information about the effectiveness of the(regional) renewable energy sources (RES) en-ergy policy

� Information about policy instruments for theestablishment of RES and EE

� Suggestions for improving the RES energy policyPT � Technical

Workshop� Stakeholders debate,� Presentation of the RENERGY survey results,

and� Presentation of local energy matrix� To discuss the potentialities of the main en-

ergy sources of the municipality and toidentify the best local initiatives on RES andEE

Three stakeholdersgroups:Associations andcitizen;Private companiesKnowledgeinstitutions

The results are related to the different kinds of theenergy: the potential, market and policyinstruments has been identified in order to promoteRES

DE � Public workshop � Information about the CO2 balance for theyears 2009e2010,

� Discussion about the results and possibilitiesto further the progress of emitting less

� Citizens � Informing about the CO2 balance and� The generation of ideas on the future improve-

ments in order to decrease the CO2 emissions

PL � Workshop � Energy strategies for municipalities - pro-jects and initiatives which can help in localenergy development

� Local authorities� SMEs

� Representatives of municipalities told about en-ergy management actions and problems in theirregions e from air pollution and low emissiondecreasing programmes, to public lightening.

LT � Conference � To initiate the community discussion aboutthe sustainable energy development oppor-tunities and prospects in the Kaunas city andregion.

� To identify the main problems and chal-lenges for the successful implementation ofthe sustainable energy sector in Kaunas city,promoting the usage of RES and energyefficiency.

Academics,Politicians,Power suppliersConsumers

The short questionnaires have been delivered forthe participants. They have filled it in time of theconference. The aim of this short survey wasidentify the main expectancies of the participantsfor the Energy Lab, the main problems in Kaunasenergy sector from their point of view and toidentify the past events, regarding energy issueswhich have been useful for the attendees.The answers of the respondents have disclosed ahuge confrontation between different stakeholdergroups.

RO � TechnicalWorkshops/ThematicMeetings

� To organise the dialogue and� Exchange of experiences on renewable en-

ergy production.� To establish the necessity and opportunity to

invest in renewable energy,� To start being an example beneficiary of

renewable energy projects

Selectedstakeholders

All the mentioned issues has been analysed

DK Energy Fair Promotion of RENERGY with focus on kids andtheir families- 1. Energy Lab.

CitizensKids and theirfamilies

Successful RES promotion and a kid (and parents)-focused approach (is supposed to be followed upwith schools in enlarged case study)

HU � InteractiveWorkshop

� Smart metering”;� Highly efficient automated stoker for wood

firing;� Application of LED lights in public and office

lightings;� Current subsidy opportunities available in

the field of energy sector.

- Citizens Geothermal energy as one type of renewable energysources can be used in cascade system in manyways, including the production of electricity, districtheating, heating of greenhouses in horticulture, inthermal bath for balneology.This provides a huge opportunity for the city,whereas the legal environmental regulations caneliminate the exploitation of this type of RES, in casethat the pushing back of water will be obligatoryafter 31 December 2014.This is still under debate. Nobody knows whichparty's will or argument will be stronger.

DurhamCounty e UK

e � To inform the community association aboutthe RENERGY Project

� To revise the energy campaigns already un-dertaken by Oakenshaw Community Toidentify additional energy efficiency andrenewable energy opportunities that theRENERGY project may be able to support.

e � The aims of the RENERGY project has been dis-cussed within the community association

SheffieldeUK � Thematic Workshop � To identify additional energy efficiency andrenewable energy opportunities that theRENERGY project may be able to support

� Selectedstakeholders

� Results of the group discussions lead to 3 mainareas to target in Sheffield: Knowledge; CityMetrics; Clarity of Policy.

� It was decided to produce some well-designedliterature aimed at disseminating the results ofthe SAA to all 3 thematic pillars, in order to:Educate region about EE and RES; Inform regionabout the state of the art; and to increase acommunity uptake in RES.

J. Dvarioniene et al. / Renewable Energy 75 (2015) 512e518 517

Fig. 4. Energy Lab participation rate in different regions.

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conclusion, the stakeholder involvement process can be consideredas an investment in the future as this structured process can sup-port the trust in the institutions and the creation open innovationnetworks facilitating the implementation of policy strategies andfurther cooperation in future projects.

Acknowledgement

This research was developed in the framework of the Project“Regional Strategies for Energy Conscious Communities e

RENERGY” led by the Province of Potenza (Italy) and funded by theEU's European Regional Development fund through the INTERREGIVC programme (1245R4, RENERGY, INTERREG IVC 2007e2013).

The authors also want to express their gratitude to the twoanonymous reviewers for their highly valuable comments.

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