ECT Accredited Center
European Project EMTEU – Energy Management Technician in Europe
The European Centre of Technology (ECT), through its technical expert Marco Buoni, participated as representative of ATF, to the EMTEU European Project (Energy Management Technician in Europe). The training on Renewable Energy offered by the ECT is designed on the EMTEU project and aims to create highly skilled and quality practitioners in Europe. See below for the beneficiaries and objectives of this important European Project.
The protection of the environment, global heating, energy saving and the use of alternative energies are issues that worry both our country and Europe. One of the European Union’s priorities is the application of guidelines and legislation geared towards using all resources to reduce energy spending and to improve the application of renewable energies. The objectives addressed by the project are to provide qualified technicians in the Management of Energy, their training and the certification of efficient installations
BENEFICIARIES OF THE EMTEU PROJECT
Companies: benefit from the creation of expert technicians in the sector.
Professionals: update their knowledge in Renewable Energy, taking all the technologies involved into account.
Educational administrations: didactic material that will make it possible to promote and update educational systems in start-off training and retraining.
Social partners: access training that permits the application of this technology.
Society: get people involved in the protection of the environment and sustainability.
Training centres: implementation of sector training programmes.
OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT
To design European training for skilled technicians in:
European Project EMTEU – Energy Management Technician in Europe
Marco Buoni, Secretary of the Association of Refrigeration Technicians (It), director of Centro Studi Galileo, vice-president of the European Association AREA and a director of the ECT-EEC, is part of the High Level Steering Group (HLSG) for the QualiCert European Project.
QualiCert stands for “Common quality certification and accreditation for installers of small-scale renewable energy systems” and started in July 2009.
In a 30-month-period, it aims at developing a common approach to accreditation and certification of installers of small-scale RE systems for 5 EU Members States (i.e. Austria, France, Greece, Italy and Poland).
In line with an obligation for all Member States, arising from article 14 of the Directive on the promotion of the use of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) (28/2009/EC) to develop certification schemes or equivalent qualification schemes for installers of small-scale renewable energy installations, QualiCert proposed a concerted action among different Member States on certification and accreditation of installers of small-scale building-integrated renewable energy systems. The project precisely addressed the RES Directive’s requirement of certification schemes or equivalent qualification schemes in each Member State that obey to a set of similar criteria and recognise each other’s certification.
To guarantee the broadest possible support for the future accreditation and certification scheme, QualiCert relied on an interdisciplinary multi-stakeholder approach involving builders and installers through their EU associations, existing training providers and accrediting bodies with grassroots experience, the RES industry through its European associations, and a number of national energy agencies. This EU-wide concerted approach allowed the Project to go beyond national discussions, which are sometimes highly politically-tainted and blocked, to have a more pragmatic, result-oriented outcome based on the best identified methodology valid for EU-27.
Beyond the proactive approach fulfilling the EU obligation, QualiCert is also addressing the genuine market need for a comprehensive system to certify installers in order to guarantee quality installations and satisfied customers, which in turn will spur further market deployment.
Specific objectives:
QualiCert sets out to develop a common approach to accreditation and certification of installers of small-scale RE systems for 5 EU Members States. The intermediary objectives of the action are:
Assessment of the performance of existing schemes for accreditation of training and certification of installers EU-wide.
Validation of success criteria with stakeholders groups and development of a manual of success criteria addressing technical, legal, institutional, financial and communication aspects.
Adoption of the common approach as detailed in the manual in the 5 involved countries and mutual recognition of schemes that follow the common approach based on at least the ones expressed in Annex IV to the Directive.
Facilitation of implementation of accreditation and certification schemes based on the joint approach in the 5 MS.Promote the widest adoption and replicationof the joint approach for all 27 EU MS through targeted dissemination activities.
Strategic objectives of the proposed action:
Speed-up the implementation of art. 14 of the RES Directive aiming at obliging MS to develop and mutually recognise accreditation and certification schemes for installers.
EU-27 has accreditation and certification schemes based on the common approach. Once a core group of 5 MS has agreed to apply accreditation and certification schemes based on one common set of success criteria, the other MS are expected to join in. QualiCert will support this through proactive dissemination activities.
Assure market stakeholders buy-in to the new accreditation and certification schemes. QualiCert makes sure the RE industry and the installers and building contractors accept the new schemes as they will be based on quality criteria jointly agreed on by all relevant market stakeholders. This will guarantee that the training needs of installers are really met and that the entire scheme will be easy to implement and apply.
Assure end-user satisfaction through high quality RES installations. QualiCert allows the RE industry to respond to the strong market growth by developing and maintaining a qualified work force, which in turn will guarantee customer satisfaction with their RE systems and hence a positive image for renewable, which will favour further deployment of RE systems.