On 22 March 2022, the 3rd transnational support meeting took place online.
The purpose of this meeting was to learn more about the auditing process at 3 Counties Energy Agency and discuss about benefits and lessons learned of the process for other partners to consider in their own audits.
3CEA is performing the energy audits internally with their own qualified auditors. Four sectors were targeted by 3CEA (manufacturing/ food/ agriculture producers, offices/ property management, shopping centre/ supermarkets and nursing homes) but mostly dairy farms and agricultural nurseries requested the services of 3cea. Nursing homes, one of the biggest sectors, yet were not applying for the audits at all because of the Covid-19 pandemic which portrays the biggest problem for this sector currently. Within the CAN SME framework, two types of audits from 3cea were selected: type 1, a so-called walk-through audit and type 2, a more detailed, but still general audit.
Micheal Doran, EU Projects Manager for 3CEA, shared progress and learnings of doing the audits with the other patners. He emphasis the importance of doing pre-audit visits to make sure ressources are invested efficiently as well as fundamental need to demonstrate the benefit of implementing the identified measures to the client. Here it is helpful to point towards the economical advantages of energetic improvements, since carbon and emission savings often are not the priority. Another important element of the finalised audit is the follow-up. Micheal Doran clarifies that SMEs need help to deliver the actions propsed in the audit report. The follow-up is key to achieve the targets set.
Despite current developments of increasings awarness in SMEs towards more sustainability, saving money still stay the main motivation of SMEs to take energy saving measures. "People are only aware of problems that affect them directly, like a flooding or increasing gas prices", explained Projects Manager for 3CEA Micheal Doran. Nevertheless, he concluded "Projects like CAN SME make the difference. We are not going to change the world but projects like this can improve it a little."