GEAR@SME Use Case – Italy

Use Case: Roveri industrial district, Italy, Bologna

Trusted partner: Confindustria Emilia

Use Case Operator: Certimac, ENEA and CNA Ravenna

The Roveri industrial area is a big area (1,998,000 m2) located on the borders of Bologna city centre. It was developed according to a systematic plan. This feature implies that the area has effective access ways and internal roads, green areas, and composition of private and common spaces).

The Roveri area represents a typical local industrial area built in the seventies near the urban areas and now embedded in the city. This kind of areas are called “transition areas”, and they are potentially involved in renovation, requalification, development, or regeneration processes in order to increase the functionality and the attractiveness.

The Trusted partner Confindustria Emilia is a composition of enterprises existing and operating in the Roveri area, that has changed over time. It was exclusively industrial nature at the beginning. Nowadays, the set of enterprises settled in the area is composed of industrial activities (mainly manufacturing and mechanic SMEs), craft activities, services but also commercial, leisure and sports activities.

The role of the GEAR@SME partners Certimac, ENEA and CNA Ravenna is to assist the Trusted Partner in organising and managing training, provide best practices, provide training to the Trusted Partner and Energy Service Suppliers on tools and non-energy (multiple) benefits, support the Trusted Partner in doing energy scans, develop tools to support TP/SMEs in managing energy efficiency projects, including collective ones. ENEA can provide the TP with training and information on public/private funding.

The Use Case Operators are planning to organize seminars, training events, workshops, networking occasions. Seminars and training events will be aimed at SMEs (for activating them and motivating towards energy efficiency), ESS (to provide them the right knowledge to interact with SMEs) and with the TP (to provide them with the right skills to use the GEAR@SME methodology). They will perform energy scans, again as activation and to generate the required “baseline” data.

The overall expected impacts throughout the duration of the project will be:

  • 120 SMEs engaged
  • 60 SMEs with increased awareness of their energy consumption and flows within the company
  • 13 Energy efficiency projects
  • 750 k € investment in energy efficiency projects

Several projects involving academic and research institutions, and trade- and local institutions are ongoing to accelerate the transition process of the area towards a smart sustainable district (“Roveri Smart Village”). These projects, following a collaborative and integrated approach, aim to build a strong network of local enterprises and stakeholders. Moreover, ENEA has already coordinated the SMEs in the Roveri area within the BEST Energy Check-Up3 project with the support of Confindustria, which also supports the GECO (Green Energy Community) project here.