The project "The power of community energy" is a joint initiative of 4 partners - non-governmental organizations from Poland (SIE), Turkey (TROYA), Germany (WECF) and Denmark (INFORSE). Each partners works in the fields of non-formal and informal education on subjects important for sustainable development (including climate change, environmental protection, sustainable energy, energy transformation, civil society). The partnership will develop educational content that will complement the knowledge of educators / trainers passed to the target group - local communities of rural areas, small towns or urban districts. Numerous analyzes (official and partners' ones) indicate that there is a need to raise knowledge about social, civic and entrepreneurship competences, as well as knowledge related to climate protection and the environment, whose condition and quality affects human health and nature. The success of energy transformation depends on the level of citizenship competence. Energy transformation, including the establishment of energy cooperatives and citizen’s energy are a response to challenges facing the current civilization. The partners are very familiar of the needs in their countries in this regard. Each country is at a different stage of development of such projects: Denmark and Germany – countries with a high degree of social and civic competences - have been consistently building energy independence for years, including through community energy; in Poland and Turkey – countries with low degree of social and civic competences - examples of such undertakings are limited to a dozen. In every country - in the face of a changing situation – there is a need of knowledge and tools for associating local communities into cooperatives, financing local investments and creating cooperation networks not only at the local level. There is a great need for projects that will enable people to learn from other communities about stopping greenhouse gas emissions and thereby stop climate change. Milestones of the project are international meetings (4 in total, one in the country of each partner), whose aim is to exchange experiences, learn about the most efficient practices and work on the results. At the local level, each partner will conduct workshops in an open form using the project results in them. It is estimated that a minimum of 280 people will participate in them. The wide range of recipients will be achieved through websites, social media, networks and participation of partners in events related to the topic of the project and through the participation of partners and links to networks operating in similar areas. The implementation of the project is based on the principles and methods established by the partnership: systematic communication between partners, schedule, dissemination plan, monitoring, evaluation and joint problem solving by consensus. The results of the project will be: 1. Newsletter (4 editions) prepared by the organizer of the international meeting (pdf) containing information about the meeting, photos, news 2. Information on the project and its results on all partners' websites 3. Guides (2) "The organization of cooperation to create cooperatives, bottom-up initiatives as a response to the challenges of the 21st century". "Comparative analysis of energy cooperatives in Eastern Europe, including Poland and Turkey". 4. A database about best practice (online) 5. A database of local institutions, organizations and groups related to the project's subject (online) 6. Well-established international partnership cooperation 7. Development of follow-up projects by the partners The results of the project will be included in the partners curricula (INFORSE-Europe training for members of the organization in local commuities , SIE workshops carried out in rural areas, TROYA workshops for emerging cooperatives, WECF educational work at the national and international level). They will be used in trainings and lectures and shared with individuals and organizations cooperating with partners. Experts, trainers and educators will take part in the project's activities, the latter will include in their educational offers the results (guidance, databases) developed during the project. Educational activities will have the character of "lifelong learning". The permanent effect of the project will be increasing the knowledge of the target group on topics related to civic competences in connection with civic energy, but also increasing the level of knowledge and skills of teams of partners' organizations and an extensive network of contacts and cooperation. All results in English and the partners' languages will be published on each partner's websites and on the Erasmus+ Project Results Platform and available for free for interested parties.
The goal was to develop educational information to raise awareness of the need for energy transition, changing the system of energy production and distribution, the need for cooperation of local communities. The goal was to exchange experiences between countries with different levels of progress, to learn about best practices in Denmark and Germany, where energy cooperatives have been in place for years. These examples, meetings with experts and members of cooperatives gave knowledge and practical information to partners from Turkey and Poland. The goal was to understand the determinants of the formation of energy communities, regulatory, social and cultural factors, to identify barriers, benefits and motivations for the development of communities locally and internationally; to raise awareness of cross-cutting issues in social energy, such as gender and social justice. The goal was to establish transnational contacts with organizations, institutions, experts. The project's activities enabled the partners to increase communication and collaboration
The need to raise civic, social and entrepreneurial competencies is dire, as is the necessity to raise knowledge related to climate and environmental protection. The success of the energy transition depends on the level of civic competence. Energy Cooperatives are the answer to the challenges facing today's civilization. The greater the number of activities, the greater the chances of carrying out the energy transition on a global scale. There is a need for projects, which facilitate the exchange of experience and knowledge and learning from one another. The project partners' countries are each at different stages of realizing energy communities: Denmark and Germany - countries with a high degree of civic competence - have been building energy communities for years; in Poland and Turkey - countries with a low degree of civic competence - there are very few such communities. In view of the changing situation, knowledge and tools are essential for local communities to come together in cooperatives and create networks at all levels. The project rallowed to raise knowledge about communities, activate discussion and connect into networks that can join international groups lobbying for the energy transition.