ARRR approaches the policy improvement in the 4th semester
On February 5th 2025 ARRR met (online) Tuscany Region, the main regional stakeholder, which represents the Managing Authority in charge of the policy ERDF 2021/2027 addressed by ARRR in REC4EU project.
The online meeting was dedicated to the transfer of Good Practices from the REC4EU Project (of which both ARRR and the Tuscany Region are partners) to the RECs Call of the Tuscany Region within the abobe mentioned policy instrument.
Participants:
for Tuscany Region: Valerio Marangolo, technical officer of the Authorizations and Community Funds Sector in the field of Energy and Clelia Altamore of the Ecological Transition and environmental sustainability office, both under the Environmental Protection and Energy Directorate
for ARRR: Simone Tartaro, Roberto Bianco, Susanna Ceccanti, Greta Alberici, respectively Project manager, and technical staff of the REC4EU project
Valerio Marangolo underlined the important contribution that ARRR has been giving, thanks to the numerous meetings held and organised in Tuscany (which involved both established and future RECs and local administrations), and to support given in the definition of the regional ERDF 2021-2027 call for proposals in favor of RECs and their members for incentivizing investments in renewable energy plants.
The meeting aimed at evaluating the good practice of the French partner ALEC concerning the Call of the Nouvelle Aquitaine Region which finances innovative participatory projects on renewable sources, such as RECs.
As presented by Roberto Bianco during the REC4EU Stakeholder meeting of September 30th 2024 at the headquarters of the Tuscany Region, the call of the French partner incentivizes investments in renewable sources, the implementation of mobilization, training, communication initiatives and the definition of legal and economic studies as well as technical feasibility and project management studies, including the establishment and development of RECs.
Among the various good practices made available by the REC4EU partners, ARRR considered the one described above to be of particular interest in order to verify with the Tuscany Region its possible adaptation within the REC call for proposals of the OP ERDF 2021-2027, considering that the Tuscany Region had already planned to admit to the contribution also the feasibility costs for the establishment of RECs.
The good practice of ALEC has given the opportunity to deepen the measure and its application method in order to refine and improve it and give added value to the Tuscany call for proposals.
As pointed out by Valerio Marangolo, this demonstrates that the role of interregional cooperation (the Interreg Europe program in particular) is crucial, since it enables, thanks to the implementation of European projects, the exchange and transfer of good practices between countries, and succeeds in strengthening the policies and activities of local public authorities.
In the end ARRR also illustrated to Valerio Marangolo an online course on RECs (Espresso training) aimed at public officials, also available in Italian. This course is the result of another European project led by Green Cities, reported to us by the Spanish partner of the REC4EU project, AEA. It deals of an 8-hour course with 4 modules of 2 hours each that, if positively evaluated, would contribute to an improvement of knowledge on RECs issues. Valerio Marangolo expressed interest in disseminating this tool to colleagues in the sector, with the aim of strengthening training on such current topics.