The European Commission adopted REPowerEU initiative to decrease dependence of the energy from natural gas, including decarbonization of flexibility, accelerating adoption of renewable energy sources, increasing replacement of natural gas with hydrogen, and limiting power use during peak hours when the role of gas becomes outsized, and the bills swell.

This calls for implementation of innovative solutions that would be delivering on the objectives of this initiative and consequent measures adopted by the EU. These solutions have been developed by projects under Horizon 2020, Horizon Europe and LIFE programmes, for example, but not limited to BungEES. For implementing them, specific skills, knowledge, and competences need to be acquired by on-site craftsmen, installers, specialists employed by energy retailers, energy services providers, facility managers, maintenance, equipment inspection and by consumers, for example, by owners of renewable energy sources and sources of flexibility affiliated in energy communities around Europe or single owners of these assets.

The main objective of the REpowerE(d)U project is setting up continuing education and qualification schemes for on-site craftsmen, installers, technicians, specialists, facility managers, maintenance professionals, equipment inspectors, operators/owners/prosumers on smart solutions for building energy systems integrating energy efficiency measures with distributed electricity generation from renewables, energy storage, e-mobility, demand response, and aimed at flattening the energy consumption peaks, developing and harvesting flexibility provided by buildings. The acquired skills, knowledge, and competences will facilitate implementation of innovative solutions for delivering REPowerEU in the sector of buildings and other recent measures for decreasing dependence of EU on Russian natural gas and addressing recent extreme growth of energy prices, as well as to deal with the volatility of the energy markets in the future through increasing flexibility of energy systems and limiting power use during peak hours.

Specifically, the project will lead to:

• Analysis of the innovative solutions being delivered by Horizon and LIFE projects (e.g., project BungEES) from point of view of skills, knowledge, and competences needed for their implementation;
• Development of units of learning outcomes for different roles in planning, installation, maintenance and operation of these solutions by consumers/prosumers of energy;
• Development of 7 cross-trade training programmes for on-site craftsmen, installers, technicians, specialists, facility managers, maintenance professionals, equipment inspectors, operators/owners/prosumers (further “targeted trainees”) on:
  • Planning smart energy solutions in buildings based on disrupting innovations in this area and integrating non-energy benefits;
  • Installing distributed electricity generation systems from renewables (taking into consideration also the Zero Emission Building concept);
  • Installing energy storage solutions in buildings and integrate the concept of material circularity;
  • Smart orchestration of energy assets in buildings combining energy efficiency with demand response, distributed energy generation from renewables, energy storage/hybrid solutions, e-
    mobility and sector integration (further “EE/DEG/EST/EM/SI”);
  • Testing installed smart energy solutions in buildings combining EE/DEG/EST/EM/SI;
  • Inspection and maintenance of smart energy solutions in buildings combining EE/DEG/EST/EM/SI;
  • Operating smart energy solutions combining EE/DEG/EST/EM/SI;
• Setting up schemes for assessment and certification of the acquired skills, knowledge, and competences for the targeted trainees in the form of micro-credentials in line with current EU policies in this area (for example, Proposal for a Council Recommendation on a European approach to micro-credentials for lifelong learning and employability 2021/0402(NLE), The European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan and Commission Communication on achieving the European Education Area by 2025 COM(2020) 625 final);
• Demonstrating the training programmes in cooperation with stakeholders, for example, companies, organization and living labs employing/affiliating the targeted trainees.

Cross-trade approach has been selected to pursue cross-trade understanding in multi-disciplinary teams delivering, testing, maintaining, and decommissioning the smart energy solutions and integrate cross-sectoral aspects such as consumer engagement, protection of privacy and cybersecurity.