The practical projects reduce emissions on average by 94 t CO₂

So far, the Energy Scouts designed 94 efficiency projects with considerable potential for savings, most of them in the areas of compressed air and lighting but the topics of mobility, resource efficiency and water consumption also play a significant role. The projects of the first two years of European Energy Scouts showed a possible reduction of greenhouse gas emissions of about 8,800 t CO₂ per year. This represents potential savings of more than 10,000 MWh of electricity and considerable quantities of natural gas, heating oil and fuels, but also water, paper, batteries and plastics, which the companies now use to a lesser extent. Some projects started as pilot projects in individual branches or subsidiaries and can later be extended to other locations in order to broaden the scale of the expected savings.

More online trainings in the future

In 2020, Energy Scouts face additional challenges due to the corona crisis. Since March, many companies in the four countries have shut down and some have had to reduce personnel. Some of the Chambers of Commerce and Industry (CCI) have moved the training sessions to virtual rooms, but not everything can be done from the home office. For example, the scouts can only carry out energy consumption measurements when the companies are in actual operation again. The first positive signals in this regard are coming from Hungary and the Czech Republic.

In the future, the qualification as Energy Scout will be further optimized – from locally flexible webinars to individual advice by lecturers for separate project teams. With the Best Practices of outstanding projects and the increasing networking of the scouts, digital tools are already available to help ensure the future success of Young Energy Europe.

The Energy Scouts of Askofruit, a company producing organic products from pomegranates, won the competition. As part of their project, Energy Scouts Konstantinos Spyridopoulos and Vlassis Dalmaris examined the energy consumption of the company’s transport operations and cooling processes. By using photovoltaics and off-peak electricity, they identified significant saving potentials and estimated a potential reduction of CO₂ emissions to less than a third annually (from 69t per year to 21t as soon as the measures are implemented).

Second place went to Energy Scout Nikos Moutsesidis of the brickworks Akek S.A. The company requires a lot of energy for their production processes and especially for brurning bricks. The project intends the installation of a photovoltaic system to produce electricity for the company from solar energy. The system can be used to supply the company or the electricity can be fed into the grid. The CO₂ savings potential of the project is 17,500t per year.

Kiara Koutoulakis of Koronekes, an oil mill that produces exclusively organic olive oil, came in third place. In her project she suggested the retrofitting of regular lights to LED lights, the added installation of inverters to the motors in the oil mill and the replacement of disposable plastic cups used for oil tasting.

A number of Scouts from Cretan hotels had also taken part in the workshops, however, they were not able not participate in the award ceremony because the tourist season on Crete is currently in full swing. They will have the opportunity to present their efficiency projects during the Athens award ceremony at the end of the year.