The Regional Director for Energy highlighted in Brussels the importance of the Outermost Regions' (ORs) Energy Network. According to her, they are "a tool promoting the exchange of experiences and the implementation of pilot projects in these territories, while channelling of European funds for investments in emerging practices and technologies."
Andreia Carreiro spoke on the sidelines of a meeting of the Energy Network of ORs that was held during the European Sustainable Energy Week. On the occasion, she noted that this partnership is "great interest for the development of each and every region based on a low-carbon economy. It focuses on a matter whose constraints and surplus costs inherent to insular territories may be overcome through the exploitation of natural resources."
The Regional Director also emphasised that "these territories are excellent examples in this field, enabling the development and demonstration of emerging technologies on the spot towards energy-based decarbonisation that may be replicable throughout the European economic space."
"The ORs have been demonstrating that they are not confined to their physical space. They have focused on the development of joint research and actions to harness their potential, identifying the opportunities for the implementation of common projects so that they can lead the Union's energy transition," said Andreia Carreiro.
Moreover, the government official stressed that several Outermost Regions are "an indispensable part of several international consortia, projects and working groups." In this regard, she pointed out RESOR, a project financed by Interreg Europe that creates synergies between Portugal, Spain, Cyprus, France and Greece. It will be in force until 2022 with the aim of "improving the implementation of measures under the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)."
"The RESOR project directs its actions towards the improvement of policies to support the increase of energy efficiency in the secondary and tertiary economic sectors," stated the government official. Currently, this project is "in the final stage of the first phase. It aimed to identify the main obstacles and their solutions with a view to improving the political tools for the decarbonisation of the economic activities in the secondary and tertiary sectors."
"We have been integrating and promoting meetings with different stakeholders with the purpose of disseminating results and democratising the measures proposed by the Regional Government regarding RESOR," said Andreia Carreiro. In this context, she mentioned that the next phase of this project concerns "the implementation of the action plans developed by partner organisations as well as the monitoring and dissemination of results."