Bright ideas that do not cost the earth

The dawning of a genuine energy policy for Europe "raises our profile", says Patrick Lambert, director of the agency in charge of the EU’s Intelligent Energy Europe (IEE) programme.

"Energy as a subject is very much top of the political agenda and that generates enormous interest in the programme."

The interest is not limited to the political level - 650 people turned up to the launch event in April for the second phase of the programme (IEE 2), compared to 120 attending the first phase launch in 2003.

With only 65 projects expected to be funded this year (see Page 20), competition is expected to be tough.

IEE aims to support the up-take of technologies, systems and practices that are already proven to contribute to the EU’s energy policy goals. The barriers it is seeking to break down are socio-economic, regulatory and organisational, even cultural. It seeks to encourage innovation in the way people, organisations and communities behave in using energy.

Lambert is keen to emphasise the ways in which the programme supports the most recent policy developments, such as the 2020 targets adopted at the spring summit.

"There’s a strong element of continuity, because the programme is already supporting the three main fields of renewable energy, energy efficiency and energy aspects of transport," he says, "but we are also launching some special initiatives. There is a bio-business initiative to increase bio-energy supplies within a short time-frame, a product standard initiative, setting standards for eco-design and energy labels to help grow markets and support economies of scale, and a combined heat and power initiative to promote energy savings in what is a mature technology."

The bio-business initiative is expected to be one of the programme’s flagships, with two or three high-profile projects developed at the regional level. They would be expected to stimulate the integrated production of solid, liquid and gaseous bio-energy sources, with a balance between the sources used and sectors supplied, for instance, taking in electricity generation, heating and cooling, and transport. There will be support elsewhere in IEE 2 for projects dealing specifically with the production and use of transport bio-fuels.

One significant change to the way the programme operates is that it has increased the proportion of project costs that it will support. In phase one it would pay up to 50% of the costs, with the rest coming from other public or private sources, but now it proposes to meet up to 75%.

"Many of our partners are small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and there have been difficulties in finding as much as 50% co-funding, particularly for organisations in eastern Europe," explains Lambert. "So we are trying to make the programme more accessible to SMEs. It is this type of company that is developing new methodologies at the cutting edge of changing behaviour and innovation."

A further reason to look to SMEs comes from the programme’s new context as part of the EU’s competitiveness and innovation programme (CIP), which includes other initiatives to promote their creation and growth. "These have been our traditional customers, but being part of this bigger programme which concentrates on SMEs has added a further impetus," says Lambert. His agency will be taking over the management of several other aspects of the CIP programme, raising the possibility of further changes. "There are a lot of synergies to explore and exploit," he says.

One part of CIP that Lambert’s agency will manage is its eco-innovation programme, a continuation of the technology demonstration support previously given under the LIFE-environment programme. Both this programme and IEE 2 will be developing market replication projects, to encourage and disseminate technologies that have been demonstrated but which have yet to enter the market-place. How these will work, in particular in relation to the technology demonstration projects of the 7th framework programme for research, is still being discussed within the Commission, and they are not expected to be implemented until 2008 or 2009.

IEE 2 is also expected to form close links with CIP’s business support networks, which the agency will also manage. "They used to be known as European Information Centres and Innovation Relay Centres," says Lambert. "These are being brought together as one network and we will be looking for synergy with them to promote the Intelligent Energy Europe programme, and perhaps to disseminate the results of projects."

• Ian Mundell is a freelance journalist based in Brussels.

The dawning of a genuine energy policy for Europe "raises our profile", says Patrick Lambert, director of the agency in charge of the EU’s Intelligent Energy Europe (IEE) programme.