PRISMI PLUS: Transferring a toolkit for RES Integration in Smart Mediterranean Islands and rural area

The Regional Energy Agency Kvarner was one of the partners behind the Interreg-MED project PRISMI PLUS, which was finalised at the end of June 2022. The project lasted sixteen months, during which a number of educational activities were carried out. The aim of these activities was to introduce the representatives of selected local authorities to a specific set of software tools that can facilitate the creation of energy transition plans. In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of these tools, four such plans were created by the end of the project. In Italy, Greece, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, they were developed for the municipalities of Ventotene, Nisyros, and for the City of Čapljina.

In Croatia, the REA Kvarner included two local authorities, the City of Cres and the Municipality of Mrkopalj, as associated partners that closely cooperated with the consortium in the project implementation. They were regularly involved in software demonstration sessions, and, along with several other local authorities that partook occasionally, they learned how to adopt the project-promoted methodology that will ultimately assist public authorities in their energy transition planning.

Since the project was particularly focused on islands, as well as rural areas that are often quite isolated in terms of energy connectivity, additional attention was given to the Municipality of Mrkopalj which is situated in the Croatian mountainous region, Gorski Kotar. A Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plan (SECAP) for the municipality was thus created during the project as Croatia’s example of an energy transition plan developed thanks to PRISMI PLUS tools and methods. 

As in other areas involved in Italy, Greece, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, the project results opened a new, valuable perspective for Croatian local authorities that changed their approach to energy transition planning, and they unanimously declared their intention to keep using the promoted software toolkit in the future. This support will facilitate more (and more accurate) SECAPs throughout the rest of the region.

The PRISMI PLUS project was carried out from March 2021 to June 2022 by an international partnership led by the Sapienza University of Rome. As an Interreg-MED project, it was co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund. All project activities in Croatia were implemented through the cooperation of two domestic partner organizations: the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture at the University of Zagreb and the institution Regional Energy Agency Kvarner.

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This best practice is issued from our publication “Sustainable Regions in Action 2023”. Find out more by clicking here to discover many more best practices from FEDARENE members as well as an overview of our activities.