On October 28, 2024, the first Solar School in Kyrgyzstan was officially inaugurated as part of the ENABLING PV project. The National School-Lyceum for Innovative Technologies, named after A. Moldokulov, was equipped with a PV system and experimental kits to provide students with hands-on experience in solar technology.

A key element of the initiative was a training session for physics and German teachers, held on October 29. The session provided educators with tools and methods to integrate solar energy topics into their lessons, helping students better understand renewable energy concepts.

The project was carried out in close collaboration with eclareon GmbH, ideas into energy GmbH, and EUROSOLAR Georgia and is funded by the German Federal Foreign Office.

The opening of the Solar School is a significant step toward raising awareness of solar energy in the region and inspiring the younger generation to actively participate in the energy transition.

On October 8, 2024, a specialist conference took place as part of the Energy Business Trip “Hydrogen from Solar and Wind Energy”, serving as an official side event of the World Power-to-X Summit in Marrakech. Supported by eclareon, the event brought together leading German and Moroccan stakeholders to present innovative technologies and strategies for advancing green hydrogen and strengthening bilateral cooperation.

The conference was organized by the German Chamber of Commerce Abroad (AHK) in Morocco and opened by German Ambassador Robert Dölger and AHK Managing Director Katharina Felgenhauer.

The focus of the conference was on presentations by German companies showcasing their innovative solutions for producing green hydrogen with renewable energy. Expert talks and discussions highlighted the potential, challenges, and opportunities for bilateral cooperation in the Power-to-X sector. A special emphasis was placed on the “Morocco Offer“, which provides investment incentives and supports the expansion of hydrogen infrastructure in Morocco.

This participation in the Summit marks another significant step in strengthening German-Moroccan collaboration in renewable energy. Further delegations and events are planned by the German Energy Solutions Initiative of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) to advance joint projects and establish Morocco as a key player in the global hydrogen economy.

On June 25, 2024, the Photon Gymnasium in Gyumri celebrated a significant achievement with its inauguration as a Solar School, underscoring its dedication to sustainable education and renewable energy integration into the classroom. This event highlighted the Gymnasium’s efforts to lead by example in promoting environmental stewardship and innovative learning.

The ceremony began with an address by the School Principal, Karine Petoyan, who welcomed a large audience of teachers, students and special guests. These guests included Erik Tintrup, Chargé d’Affaires and permanent representative of the German Embassy in Yerevan, Benjamin Speth, advisor for German as a foreign language at the Central Agency for German Schools Abroad (ZfA) in Armenia, and Christoph Urbschat, owner and managing director of ideas into energy gGmbH and eclareon GmbH.

During the inauguration, a solar installer presented the photovoltaic system, which was built for educational purposes, to the students and explained how it works. The actual celebration then took place in the auditorium, where the headmistress received a certificate and three experimental kits for physics lessons.

In future, solar energy will be a topic in German and physics classes at the school, with the aim of familiarising students in Gyumri with renewable energy technologies.

The project was carried out by ideas into energy in close collaboration with eclareon and EUROSOLAR Georgia and is funded by the German Federal Foreign Office.

On behalf of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection in Germany, eclareon will continue to advise and support the “energy solutions – made in Germany” offers to German companies in the renewable energy sector in the fields of production and green hydrogen in 2024.

The eclareon team is looking forward to the realisation of numerous exciting events and delegation trips and to working with various implementation partners of the German government.

Interested German companies can find out more about the current offers at www.german-energy-solutions.de. You can register for the events and trips organised by eclareon in November and December 2023 here (in German only). We will publish the new offers for 2024 for German companies as soon as possible.

For further information, please contact Kai Unger, ku@eclareon.com.

In the period of September 2020 until mid-2023, eclareon, together with Oeko-Institute, WindEurope and SolarPower Europe, were implementing a project for DG ENER named “Technical support for RES policy development and implementation – Simplification of permission and administrative procedures for RES installations”, abbreviated and known as RES Simplify. The project was officially brought to an end in May 2023.

The project aim was to facilitate and accelerate administrative and permit-granting procedures of renewable energy projects across EU Member States. Given this, the project consortium scrutinised such procedures across the EU. These were subsequently evaluated based on the developed performance indicators. The main results together with measures identified as good practices were further examined and disseminated through the series of 52 stakeholder engagement activities. The events included sectoral surveys, virtual workshops, national events, bilateral meetings, and presentations in public events, among others. On top of that, the partners monitored the easing of permit-granting procedures in line with the obligation for the transposition of Arts. 15-17 of the Renewable Energy Directive (RED II). Additional measures going beyond the RED II (e.g., overriding public interest principle, identification of suitable areas, positive silence for RE projects) were also further discussed. Based on the aforementioned deliverables, the partners developed recommendations and identified best practices for RES admission procedures. Last but not least, an outline for the optimised processes and supporting IT infrastructure that are compliant with RED II was prepared.

The RES Simplify Final Report (in English), which includes all the details, can be found here.

In the framework of the Pakistan-German Renewable Energy Forum (PGREF), a fifteen-member delegation visits the Berlin Energy Transition Dialoge, several side events and participates in workshops with Berlin experts to learn about urban solar policy instruments such as the Masterplan Solarcity Berlin and about smart sustainable mobility and transport concepts.

PGREF, funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ),  supports Pakistani and German businesses and think tanks to develop mutually beneficial cooperation for successful renewable energy and energy efficiency projects in Pakistan.

eclareon supports the lead consultant INTEGRATION environment & energy in the conception of the PGREF and since 2022 has been working with the PGREF team to set up various task forces to promote bilateral cooperation. The current delegation is composed of participants of the task forces “Smart cities”, “Net-zero Industry” and representatives of the Alternative Energy Development Board (AEDB).

The Urban Innovation Forum, formerly Urban Energy Forum, will take place as an official side event of the Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue on 30 March at Drivery, Studio 22, Mariendorfer Damm 1, 12099 Berlin. Participation is free of charge, registration is required. Further information is available at https://www.urbaninnovation.berlin/urban-innovation-forum-2023.

The forum is organised by the Berlin-Brandenburg Energy Network e.V. (BEN) and took place for the first time in 2018 on the initiative of eclareon.

For companies from Berlin and Brandenburg interested in the BEN, Managing Director and BEN President Christoph Urbschat will be available on 30 March between 12 and 2 p.m. as part of B2B matchmaking. After successful registration, appointments with all participants can be booked here: https://uif-2023.b2match.io/.

The 9th Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue (BETD) will be held on 28-29 March 2023 at Federal Foreign Office in Berlin.  More than 1,000 participants, including numerous foreign and energy ministers, state secretaries and other high-ranking speakers, will gather in the German capital in one week.

The event is hosted and supported by the German Federal Government and is a joint initiative of the German Renewable Energy Federation (BEE), the German Solar Association (BSW), the German Energy Agency (dena) and eclareon.

In the past years the BETD has become a leading international forum for key stakeholders of the energy sector. High-level policymakers, industry, science and civil society are given the opportunity to share their experiences and ideas on a safe, affordable and environmentally responsible global energy transition.

More information about 9^th BETD at https://www.energydialogue.berlin/.

Green hydrogen plays an increasingly important role as an energy carrier for a global energy transition, offering enormous opportunities both for the decarbonization of Germany and for the socio-economic development of partner countries of German development cooperation. In addition to the development of domestic production, the import of green hydrogen will play an important role in Germany. For these imports, sustainability criteria in particular must be defined and taken into account in addition to economic criteria.

In this context, the study conducted by eclareon on behalf of GIZ pursued the goal of examining existing potential studies for green hydrogen with regard to the consideration of potential criteria relevant to development policy. At the same time, an indicator system for developmental sustainability criteria was developed and its suitability for the evaluation of country potentials for the development of a hydrogen economy was assessed. The indicators were applied as examples to four partner countries of German international cooperation that are already implementing activities in the field of green hydrogen. These countries are Brazil, Chile, Morocco and South Africa.

The study can be downloaded in German here.