Who are the project partners? Which is the project duration? Which are the sources of funding?

The PEPESEC project (Partnership Energy Planning as a tool for realizing European Sustainable Energy Communities) is the coordinated effort of twelve (12) partners from six (6) EU Member States (UK, Italy, Poland, Spain, Greece, Sweden) to support the development of sustainable energy communities. The project -with a duration of 30 months- is being financed by the program “Intelligent Energy for Europe (IEΕ) of the Directorate-General “Energy and Transport” of the European Commission (Contr. No. IEE-07-179 SI2.466281).

Which are the benefits of participatory planning?

Given the fact that involving the entire community in the strategic and management processes of public goods seems to be the safest and fastest way to ensure successful development at local – regional level, the PEPESEC project puts special focus on participatory community energy planning, which promotes and facilitates the involvement of citizens, politicians, market actors and other stakeholders involved in the energy planning procedure.

Which are the targeted urban areas of the project?

The participating target city-regions are the following:
Greater Manchester, Manchester and Oldham (two core municipalities in the Greater Manchester metropolitan city-region), Malmo and Murcia (both focusing on two local communities within the city-region), Genoa, Amaroussion (the largest municipality within the Athens metropolitan city-region), Thessaloniki and Katowice.

What is the main aim of the project?

These 7 city-regions will acquire complete “Energy Action Plans”, which may be used as a model for the development of corresponding actions plans in other European municipalities or communities, after identifying transferable and adaptable methodologies for multi-stakeholder strategic development.