SSmartEnergy, which is funded by the EU COSME program to boost the competitiveness of businesses and, especially, SMEs, is one of the four new projects Minalogic is engaged in right now.
Businesses in the smart energy space will be able to take advantage of SmartEnergy. Any business at the crossroads between energy and digital technology developing solutions to support greater energy efficiency and performance, the energy and ecological transition, smart energy distribution, smart grids, and other smart energy solutions is within the scope of SmartEnergy.
The 24-month project started on February 1, 2020 and is being run by a consortium of six European digital and energy clusters:
- Environment Park en Italie, Piedmont region of Italy - https://www.envipark.com/en/
- Minalogic, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of France - https://www.minalogic.com/
- Tenerrdis, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of France - https://www.tenerrdis.fr/fr/
- Flux50, Flanders, Belgium - https://flux50.com/
- TWEED, Wallonia, Belgium - http://clusters.wallonie.be/tweed-fr/
- ArchEnerg, Hungary - http://www.archenerg.eu/en
The purpose of the project is to:
- Support SMEs in their market development strategies
- Assist SMEs as they overcome the barriers to scaling up their prototypes for manufacturing and operation
- Promote cooperation between the five participating energy clusters and Minalogic, the only cluster specializing in digital technology, by helping their members to work together
- Develop each cluster’s value chain and services to build on each cluster’s strengths and fill any gaps
The project partners will leverage three main initiatives and resources:
1. A service lineup specific to the smart energy space. Member clusters will be able to adapt their services for their countries and make them available to their members.
To ensure that this happens, the needs of member SMEs will be assessed and an inventory of the know-how available in the six partner clusters’ ecosystems is underway. There are two surveys that can be completed online by all member companies and organizations that provide innovation support services (clusters, innovation agencies, business incubators, tech-transfer organizations).
Another workshop and training session to further develop these services will be held in the Fall of 2020 in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes.
2. The new ClusterXChange program is being developed and adapted. This European Commission program will give businesses an opportunity to take part in cross-border exchanges in the different organizations that belong to the partner cluster network starting in the Fall of 2020. The partner clusters will determine the topics and organization of the exchanges. One of the purposes of the exchanges will be to help participants identify new partners and opportunities to penetrate new markets. Participants will expand their business networks, share their experiences, and boost their skills. The short trips (two to five days) will be funded by the project.
3. A European alliance (or metacluster) for digital technology as an enabler of the energy transition is on the drawing board. To determine the feasibility and strategy orientations of such an alliance, the SmartEnergy project will analyze the multi-industry smart energy value chain and market trends, and then put forward potential adaptations each cluster can make on the path to converging toward a common strategy for the creation of a future alliance of clusters on a model similar to that of Silicon Europe, an alliance of Minalogic’s strategic partners.
For further information :
Laure Quintin | Head of European Projects
laure.quintin@minalogic.com | M : +33 (0)6 04 91 17 99
