We received our partners on Thursday morning at our newly refurbished meeting space in Brixton. It has been very exciting to reunite with partners we have worked with before, and also to welcome new partners from Germany and Slovakia. It was a shame however that our Portuguese partner was not able to make it. The meeting on Thursday started on time with everyone able to find our office in a very busy business centre (the Shakespeare Business Centre).
After formal introductions, we presented our companies and our respective national, international activities and how the DEA Europe Project is pertinent to our work. Next came the presentations on domestic energy assessment in the various countries. Already we could see some clear differences in countries where energy assessment has played a role since the 1970s – 1990s (Germany/ Austria), whereas other partners reported that energy assessment has only been relevant for the last few years, at least officially. We also spoke about the vocational training aspects of becoming a DEA in each of the countries and again, our initial assumptions on the very different provisions were confirmed.In Austria for example, the training to become a DEA takes 180 one hour lessons and they break them up into basic and advanced lessons, with basic training being comprised of a 3-day seminar and 29 hours of e-learning and the advance training being 12 days of seminars and an additional 36 hours of e-learning. In the UK, you can become a domestic energy assessor after completing a 3-day training course and passing an examination. Or you can simply sit the examination without even attending the course. Not a subtle difference by any means…
In the afternoon we discussed the common (European) driving forces behind domestic energy assessment (Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, EPBD, 2002/91/EC Directive) to help better understand where we’ve come from and why we think partner countries have taken decision to implement it in the way they did. On the second day we went through the specifics of the project, set partner tasks, agreed on all important parts of the project (dissemination, evaluation, general activities, next partner meeting etc) and clarified work at hand for the coming months including setting the date for the next partnership meeting. Overall, a very good start to a very interesting project.
Funky Renewables, UK
Once arrived in busy London, Christoph Holzner and Johannes Kohlmaier were happy to represent the Cleaner Production Center Austria at the first DEA Europe Meeting.
Funky Renewables welcomed us at theShakespeare Business Center in Brixton and after getting in touch with the project partners the meeting started. First, we discussed our agenda of the next two days and afterwards partners shortly gave some insights about theirorganisations. It was interesting how diverse the partnership actually is, nevertheless there are also a lot of contact points between the partners organisations.An important aspect of the partner meeting was the very different context of domestic energy assessment and the structures behind in the partner countries. But not only the organisational structures are diverse, also the training of DEAs itself. One of the relevant aspects for these varietiesare different historical contexts and reasons why DEA was or will beimplemented in the partners countries. These aspectsare one of the issues of the DEA project and we are curious about further insights on thesedifferences and similarities.
Beside the project work we also had a deliciousColumbian lunch at the Brixton market, a very lively place that is definitely worth visiting.At the end of these two days we got a lot of work done and every partner contributed to a good DEA Europe kick off.CPC Austria wants to thank Funky Renewables for the successful project kick off and hospitality, we are looking forward to the upcoming project steps!
CPC, Austria
Nachdem wir uns in den vergangenen Wochen intensiv über die Energieeffizienz im deutschen Wohngebäuden sowie über den Markt für Energieberatungsleistungen in Thüringen informiert hatten, starteten wir am Mittwoch den 11. Dezember gegen 13.00 Uhr mit dem Auto von Zella-Mehlis nach Nürnberg. Den Flughafen Nürnberg erreichten wir gegen 15.00 Uhr. Der Flug in der voll besetzten Rayn-Air-Maschine verlief ohne Probleme und dauerte ca. 1,5 Stunden. Dank einer Stunde Zeitverschiebung erreichten wir nach Start um 16.55 Uhr London ca. 17.30 Uhr.Nach anfänglichen Problemen, den richtigen Bus zu finden, erreichten wir unser Hotel in London-Camberwell gegen 21.30 Uhr. Unsere Gespräche mit den Partnern aus Österreich, der Slowakei, der Türkei, Großbritannien begannen am darauffolgenden Tag gegen 9.30 Uhr. Der Ort des Meetings war nach einem ca. 30 minütigen Fußmarsch vom Hotel erreicht. In den zwei folgenden Tagen erfuhren wir interessante Einzelheiten über die Umsetzung der EU-Vorgaben zur Energieeffizienz im Wohngebäudebereich in den Partnerländern sowie über die unterschiedlichen Ausbildungswege zum Energieausausweisersteller.
Bildung-Centre Suedthueringen, Germany