The European Court of Auditors, in its “Special Report n.5“, examined the link between renewable energy and rural development. Through a review of the EU policy framework for renewable energy as a whole, it assessed how it has integrated specific rural development aspects and whether such framework used to spend funds earmarked for rural development had been designed and implemented in a way that facilitated both renewable energy deployment and sustainable rural development. Geothermal is a virtuous example.
The Court concluded that renewable energy is not adequately considered in the rural development programming exercise.
To encourage the production and use of energy from renewable sources, numerous European and national funding programmes are already available, namely the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD ). However, the Court noted that the European Commission was not able to provide comprehensive up-to-date information on financial support for renewable energy from rural development funds.
Virtuous cases of these synergies exist, though. One of them is in Tuscany, Italy, which brings as an example the reduction of the carbon footprint of a winery through geothermal energy.
Here what the study reports: “A multifaceted project which we visited had received EAFRD support for food processing; it concerned the building of a new winery. Environmental sustainability was a priority for the winery, which calculated the carbon footprint of its products. The project included various elements for reducing energy consumption and producing renewable energy: a geothermal plant for cooling, a photovoltaic installation, a wood biomass heating plant, and several investments for saving energy (a sunlight capture system, ventilation, evaporative cooling tower). In 2015, the company produced 68 % of the energy it used. The project also resulted in a reduction of the carbon footprint per bottle of wine.”
In addition to improving its environmental performance, the company had improved its economic results, which had also allowed it to increase its number of employees.
The EU Court has examined around 29 projects under the EAFRD programme envisaging the development of at least one source of renewable energy, and on 4 occasions (Annex II ) this renewable energy was geothermal. In all of these cases, the Court noted environmental and socio-economic improvements, showing how the use of geothermal energy as a renewable energy source not only does not preclude the rural development of the territory, but may even favor it.
Source [in Italian]: Sinergie positive tra geotermia e sviluppo rurale, secondo la Corte UE
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