Scaling-up the involvement of women in supporting and accelerating market uptake of renewable energy sources for heating and cooling

Project Information

W4RES

Grant agreement ID: 952874

DOI

10.3030/952874

Project closed

EC signature date 30 June 2020

Start date 1 November 2020

End date 31 October 2023

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Secure, clean and efficient energy

Total cost

€ 2 999 658,75

EU contribution

€ 2 999 658,75

Coordinated by

Q-PLAN INTERNATIONAL ADVISORS PC
Greece

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - W4RES (Scaling-up the involvement of women in supporting and accelerating market uptake of renewable energy sources for heating and cooling)

Reporting period: 2022-05-01 to 2023-10-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Despite of the heating and cooling market accounting for over 50% of the EU’s energy demand and being largely fossil-fuelled, progress in the deployment of renewable energy technologies in this market has been lagging behind for years now. This poses both a pressing need and an opportunity to support the uptake of renewable heating and cooling with a view to contributing towards our climate and energy targets, all while boosting economic growth, maintaining industrial leadership, creating jobs and delivering social and environmental benefits to EU citizens.
In spite of their catalytic potential in supporting the uptake of renewable energy, women are still underrepresented across the renewable energy sector: more men than women are working in the sector; women are a minority in energy policy-making and decision-making bodies in the EU and its member states. All in all, it appears that the EU is not utilising to the full a much promising lever that can not only facilitate the uptake of renewable energy in heating and cooling, but also address the persisting gender gap in the traditionally male-dominated energy sector, fostering a socially inclusive clean energy transition that can bring equal benefits for all EU citizens.
Women hold great potential as agents of change, driving the clean energy transition and getting us closer to meeting the EU’s climate and energy targets for 2030. In this context, W4RES taps into this potential to support the uptake of renewable energy in heating and cooling (RHC), a market that urgently needs to shift more to RES.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

W4RES began with a deep dive into the framework conditions and regional specificities of eight diverse yet representative markets in Europe (Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Italy, Norway, and Slovakia), assessing enablers and barriers to RHC uptake. Building on gender-disaggregated insights from market actors and stakeholders as well as successful cases of women leading RHC projects, we have developed a suite of flexible and cost-effective support (Business, Technical, Capacity Building, Raising Awareness) measures with high reapplication potential, which we deployed to cut down project development timings and efforts as well as to sidestep legal, institutional and financial challenges, setting in motion feasible and sustainable business models that fit to the dynamics of the RHC market. In parallel, we conducted raising awareness campaigns to foster demand for RHC whilst boosting female involvement in the RHC sector.
Concurrently, we have developed the W4RES Observatory to facilitate engagement, international cooperation and open innovation among RHC stakeholders. This digital focal point aggregates meaningful intelligence and tools in one place, supporting their dissemination and fostering their use for scaling-up the involvement of women in RHC, while offering a digital hub for community engagement for more gender-responsive RHC solutions and enabling framework conditions. After two rounds W4RES supported in total 56 initiatives / projects in the RHC sector, which are already tapping on the potential of women to implement their plans.
Along the way, a gender-responsive monitoring and evaluation framework gauged the performance and impact of our measures, providing us with the intel required to turn them from solutions fit for a set of challenges to integrated solutions that can address diverse policy and market needs across Europe.
We have shared insights with relevant actors via a targeted policy roundtable in July 2023 in Copenhagen (Denmark) and debated on how policy can contribute to the creation of an enabling environment that can foster the uptake of RHC and scale-up the involvement of women in the process. This led to us to a refined Replication Guide and Toolkit and a series of policy recommendations and briefs on improving national and EU frameworks, while also making a case for the added value and benefits of our approach for driving the uptake of RHC in local markets (establishing regional hubs, offering support services, building gender competence, etc.).

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

W4RES produced a lot of useful material that is available at the W4RES website and Observatory that can be used by various entities and organisations in order to boost their RHC deployment and tap on the potential of the women in the Renewable Energy sector. Finally, the Replication Guide and the Policy Recommendations provide a set of valuable tools to replicate W4RES results for all that share our convictions that female empowerment and an accelerated energy transition are not only matters of fairness and good sense, but also urgent needs for our societies and economies.

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