UP-RES: Urban Planners with Renewable Energy Skills

The UP-RES project trained over 1,200 Urban Planning (UP) professionals with Renewable Energy Skills (RES) through a series of modular courses.

Duration:

September 2010 to February 2013.

Target Countries:

Finland, Germany, Hungary, UK, Spain.

Description / Objectives:

There is a serious need to reduce energy consumption and emissions in urban areas and support sustainable development. Currently there is a lack of both knowledge and usable tools combining both elements, energy and urban and regional planning.

As relevant training was also missing throughout Europe, the UP-RES (Urban Planners with Renewable Energy Skills) project contributing to bringing awareness and comprehensive understanding on renewable energy systems among urban and regional planning professionals.

The UP-RES project’s main focus was on organising training for urban and regional planners. The main target groups were European planning professionals working in national, regional and municipal authorities, but also in private consultation companies.

Results / Final Reports:

During the UP-RES project, the partners had delivered nearly 50 short trainings in five partner countries and three comprehensive professional development training programs in Finland, Spain. Hungary and Germany. In total, this provided training to nearly 1,200 planners. In addition to the training sessions, the partners collected information of 30 best practice cases in which renewable energy solutions had been integrated with urban planning.

A package of 10 training modules was produced (Module Introductions) and was distributed to European universities, planning schools and energy utilities:

• Module 1 – Sustainable Concepts in Regional and Urban Planning.
• Module 2 – Energy Forms – Transformation – Market Outlook.
• Module 3 – Energy Demand Reduction Strategies: Urban Planning.
• Module 4 – Energy Demand Reduction Strategies: Buildings.
• Module 5 – Energy Resources and Renewable Energy Technologies.
• Module 6 – Energy Distribution: District Heating and Cooling.
• Module 7 – The Right Scale for Each Energy Concept.
• Module 8 – New Management Concepts in the Energy Market.
• Module 9 – Energy Planning.
• Module 10 – New Transport Models and Urban and Inter-City Mobility.

The UP-RES Main Report was produced following all the training sessions; Making Cities Energy Efficient. The project concluded that there is a substantial need for the UP-RES subject area and related competencies in the training or urban and regional planners, in addition to the evident great value of collaborating across partner countries.

Project Partners:

Aalto University (FI) (coordinator); Munich University of Technology, TUM (DE); Sabaté associats Arquitectura I Sostenibilitat, SaAS (ES); Building Research Establishment Ltd., BRE (UK); University of Debrecen, UD (HU); University of Augsburg, UA (DE); German Heat & Power Association: Project Company for rationalization, information and standardization, AGFW (DE).

Websites:

http://aaltopro2.aalto.fi/projects/up-res/index.html

Funding:

IEE Programme.