Are online events the new future?

April 30th 2020: With over 400 participants, B.A.U.M. Consult and partners successfully concluded an online event. But does Corona point the way to a more sustainable management? In any case, we are currently learning how to create successful events without time- and energy-consuming travel. The international conference on "Energy Communities" serves as one example.

More than 20 speakers and over 400 participants had the opportunity to spend a whole day to virtually exchange ideas on the topic of "Energy Communities - Findings from Innovation Programs and Pilots". In addition to the technical implementation of the entire event, B.A.U.M. Consult also designed the content of the afternoon session. Under the title "10 Flavours of Energy Communities", 10 experts presented their approaches for energy communities and discussed to what extent they agree with the Commission Directives on "Renewable Energy Communities" and "Citizen Energy Communities".

The event was originally planned for the Mission Innovation Week Austria (MIAW) in Hall near Innsbruck. After the MIAW was postponed to 2021, this virtual event was planned and realised at short notice - obviously with great results! The event was related to the work of the "Taskforce on Local Energy Communities" in the European BRIDGE initiative, which is designed to bring together European experts and projects  to form a Knowledge Network. Ludwig Karg, head of this taskforce and managing director of B.A.U.M. Consult, invited the projects and moderated the event.

Central partners of the event were the European funding initiative "Joint Programming Platform ERA-Net Smart Energy Systems" (JPP ERA-Net SES) and the Austrian Ministry for Climate Protection, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology (BMK). Since 2015, B.A.U.M. Consult has been providing program support for the JPP ERA-Net SES initiative, a network of 30 public funding agencies from European and associated countries and regions. JPP ERA-Net SES supports transnational research, development and innovation projects that develop technologies, business models and methods to activate stakeholders for future energy systems. For this purpose, B.A.U.M. Consult in cooperation with RSE (Italy) and CLIC Innovation (Finland) has established a Knowledge Community and annually develops policy recommendations for the 23 participating countries and EU-level organizations.