Renewable Energy

ALTENER: 2001 - 2002

ALTENER is the European Union (EU) non-technological programme promoting the use of renewable energy sources (RES) within the EU. It is the only European programme devoted entirely to renewable energy. ALTENER’s aim is to help achieve a doubling of the use of RES from 6% of total EU consumption in 1996 to 12% by 2010, as set out in the Commission’s White Paper "Energy for the Future: Renewable Sources of Energy", published in November 1997. The White Paper includes a Campaign for Take-Off which aims to kick-start the increased deployment of RES over the period 1999-2003.

ALTENER's overall objectives are to:

• help create the necessary conditions for the implementation of a Community Action Plan for RES
• encourage private and public investments in the production and use of energy from renewable sources.

Unlike ENERGIE in the Fifth Framework Programme, ALTENER is a "software" rather than a "hardware" programme and support is available for:

• studies and strategic actions
• pilot actions to create or extend infrastructures for renewable energy development
• promotion and dissemination measures
• targeted actions to facilitate the market penetration of renewable energy sources
• monitoring and support actions

The level of support is either 100% for tenders or up to 50% for all other proposals.

Current Status (May 2002)

The current ALTENER programme closes at the end of 2002. The final call for proposals was announced in January. The main part of the call closed in April 2002 but the final deadline for submissions under part C (small grants for activities such as publications, conferences, seminars or workshops) is 12:00 (Brussels time) on 30 September 2002.

Further details can be found on the Commission’s ALTENER web site.

Commission proposes new Intelligent Energy for Europe programme

In April the Commission proposed a new programme Intelligent Energy for Europe to follow on from ALTENER, SAVE and SYNERGY when they close at the end of 2002.

The new proposal is for a four-year programme with a total budget of €215million. The Commission is proposing:

• support for promoting renewable energy (ALTENER): €86 million
• support for promoting energy saving (SAVE): €75 million
• support for promoting renewable energy and energy saving in developing countries (COOPENER, similar to the current SYNERGY programme): €19 million
• a new raft of measures covering the energy aspects of transport (STEER): €35 million

Six types of action are planned for each area:

The Commission also foresees "delegation of certain programme management tasks to an executive agency" but this will be the subject of a subsequent proposal.

The aim is to have the new programme agreed by the end of this year so that a call for proposals can be announced early in 2003.

Any comments on this proposal are welcome – to ravi.khosla@dti.gsi.gov.uk 

Other useful sites

AGORES, the "one-stop-shop" for information on renewable sources of energy.

The Energy Framework Programme provides the best Commission web site for all relevant papers as from here you can get to ALTENER and SAVE (ALTENER’s sister programme promoting energy efficiency). There is also a link to a page providing information on the Commission’s proposal for a new programme "Intelligent Energy for Europe" which is planned to support renewable energy and energy efficiency after the current ALTENER and SAVE programmes close at the end of 2002

CORDIS, a European Commission database containing information on programmes. Within CORDIS is a database on supported projects, including ALTENER projects.

Last updated: 13 December 2002