Exploring Von Hippel’s (2004) question of “how can or should user innovations.. .be transferred to manufacturers for large scale diffusion?”, leads us to analyze the possibility of users as innovators becoming entrepreneurs.

According to Caree and Thurik, (2003), entrepreneurship can be defined as the “manifest ability and willingness of individuals, on their own, in teams, within and outside existing organizations to perceive and create new economic opportunities (new product, new production methods, new organizational schemes, new market-product combinations, etc.), and to introduce their ideas in the market, in the face of uncertainty and other obstacles, by making decision on location, form and the use of resources and institutions”. Entrepreneurs are not, in the straight sense of the word, all the same and, according to Wennekers and Thurik in Caree and Thurik (2003) one can distinguish three types of entrepreneurs: Schumpeterian entrepreneurs — the ones found in most small firms, as they enter the market with their own firm, presenting innovative products under the creative destruction concept, Intrapreneurs — entrepreneurs that innovate within the company that currently employs them and Managerial business owners — found in the large majority of small firms, including in this category franchisees and shopkeepers. Focusing on Schumpeterian Entrepreneurs, these are viewed as a person who creates new combinations of production, organizing, reorganizing social and economic mechanisms, exploiting market opportunities that eliminate disequilibrium between supply and demand. Under Schumpeter’s idea the entrepreneur is seen as an innovator and a leader, whose motivations and attitudes towards new business creation should be empowered.

In parallel with the described types of entrepreneurs, an alternative way of entrepreneurs addressing the market is through the selling of their idea to other stakeholders that, most of the times, already are in the market and present the necessary conditions to develop the idea.

The motivations that drive entrepreneurs to pursue new challenges are very much related to achieving professional satisfaction. Despite motivations, the entrepreneur needs to be in an adequate environment where conditions for success do exist, namely, skills and expertise in the intended area, development and inclusion of new technologies in the overall process and a clear view of expected profits, at the economic, social and psychological level. To improve the entrepreneurial infrastructure and create an entrepreneurial support climate, private and public support and attitudes play an essential role. Private sector elements are capital, professional services, business support and labour markets. Public sector elements relate to government policies, which play important roles for business to occur. (Lordkipanidze, Brezet and Backman, 2004) Developing the innovation creation system through the improvement of the knowledge creation system and increase of R&D both at private and public sectors is crucial. To effectively promote and design regulatory polices that increase entrepreneurship rates, encourage R&D activities, promote the allocation of venture capital and facilitate start-ups creation, entrepreneurs education must be the first aspect to address, on a perspective that considers not only knowledge creation, but also knowledge transfer and commercialization. (Lordkipanidze, Brezeta and Backman, 2004; Caree and Thurik, 2003) The important part played by the regulatory framework, mainly succeeds from the incentives the governments can set and that should consider economic and financial components of new business creation as well as the market equilibrium and social development regarding the interaction between different spheres of action, meaning multidisciplinary interaction and geographical interests.

The knowledge obtained seems to show that the STO contribution to a sustainable growth of a solar thermal marked in Portugal must be viewed in the aspects described in the following subsections, as pointed out in the framework of the RCCTE Questions % Answers [19] of the work carried out within the ongoing European project PROSto [20], and of the Portuguese Efficiency Energy National Action Plan [21]:

1.1. Business environment

The present STO must be integrated as a part of a “policy package”, including other legal as well as financial and information/training/awareness instruments.

A “policy package” in the way of “zero building emissions” must include basic requirements for energy savings, namely, limitation of energy demand, energy efficiency of thermal installations, energy efficiency of lighting, minimal Solar contribution for sanitary hot water, and minimal PV or small wind contribution for electricity.

A STO must define clear requirements with as few exceptions as possible (as a means to reduce non-compliance).

Quality is key: certification of thermal solar system and components — solar collectors, factory made systems, and custom built systems; planner, designer and installer certification; technical impositions in the regulations (supported by a very consistent manual of actual good practices for solar thermal applications, with a flexible method to follow new developments); guarantee impositions (maintenance contract).

Public awareness is key (to create an understanding that this is not another awful bureaucratic burden) — on-line information (lists of certified equipments, installers, technical description of the equipments, manual of good practices, schoolar materials (class notes, computer codes, homework assignments, etc.), etc.) is key!.

Leading by example — public buildings!

1.2. Barriers

Complex regulation: Keep it simple! E. g. clear calculation methods to accomplish requirements, checks.

Not clear roles of the actors involved: Separate roles of developing & enacting, operating & monitoring, training, etc.

Lack of knowledge of the actors involved: Improve hearings, training courses for professionals, information campaign from the beginning (before the STO), modification of architecture school curricula to solve the problem of the architectural barrier: what to do to prepare a building to solar (place for the collectors (and their integration); place for technical rooms)), weekly courses for teachers and consumers, etc.

Resistance from "external” sectors: Involve them from the beginning (hearings), offer them enough alternative solutions.

1.3. Flanking measures

More targeted actions are needed, e. g. training for Municipality personnel, campaigns towards building companies, training on large scale solar plants for designers, etc.

Information & training for suppliers (including planner, designer and installers) and users are key.

References

[1] — Altener Programme, Project ”Action for the Dissemination of Solar Thermal Active Energy in Portugal’ (Contract no 4.1030/Z/96-104).

[2] — QUALISOL Project — Installer Qualification for Solar Heating Systems, Cluster Project Number: 4.1030 / C / 00 / 004.

[3] — Programme E4, approved by the Resolution of the Portuguese Council of Ministers n.° 154/2001, of 19th October (DR n.°243 SERIEI-B, 2001-10-19).

[4] — Incentive Measures for Renewable Energies Use and Rational Use of Energy (Portaria n.°

383/2002, of 10th April, DR n.° 84 SERIE I-B, 2002-04-10).

[5] — Jorge Cruz Costa, Joao Farinha Mendes, Maria Joao Carvalho, Manuel Lopes Prates, Silvino Spencer e Joao Correia de Oliveira — “A Certificagao de Qualidade em Sistemas Solares para Aquecimento de Agua” — Revista Ingenium II Serie n.° 77, Agosto/Setembro de 2003, Ordem dos Engenheiros, Lisboa. 2003.

[6] — EPBD, EU Directive 2002/91/CE of the European Parliament and of the Council, of 16 December 2002, on the energy performance of buildings (Off. Jour. L 1/65, 4.1.2003).

[7] — RCCTE, Portuguese Thermal Performance Building Regulation (Decreto-Lei n.°80/2006, DR n.° 67 SERIE I-A, 2006-04-04).

[8] — SCE, Building Certification National System on Energy and Interior Air Quality (Decreto-Lei n.° 78/2006, DR n.° 67 SERIE I-A, 2006-04-04).

[9] — RSECE, Air Conditioning Energy Systems Regulation (Decreto-Lei n.° 79/2006, DR n.° 67 SERIE I-A, 2006-04-04).

[10] — Building Certification National System on Energy and Interior Air Quality Implementation Calendar (Portaria n.° 461/2007, DR n.° 108 SERIE II, 2007-06-05).

[11] — Registration Tax Values for Energetic Certificates (Portaria n.° 835/2007, DR n.° 151 SERIEI, 2007-08-07).

[12] — Model of the Certificates of Energetic Performance and Interior Air Quality (Despacho n. ° 10250/2008, DR n.° 67 SERIE II, 2008-04-08).

[13] — State Budget 2008 (Lei n.° 67-A/2007, DR n.° 251 SERIE I, 2007-12-31, pg. 9178-(13), IRS Code, Art. 85, n.°2).

[14] — Roles of reintegration and amortization applicable to equipments using renewable energies (Decreto Regulamentar n.°22/99, DR n.°233 SERIEI-B, 1999-10-06, pg. 6779)

[15] — State Budget 2002 (Lei n.° 109-B/2001,, DR n.° 298 SERIE I-A, 2001-12-27, pg. 8496-(310), IVA Code, List II, 2.4)

[16] — Incentive System for Qualification and Internationalization of SME Regulation (Portaria n.° 1463/2007, DR n.° 220 SERIE I, 2007-11-15)

[17] — PROENERGIA — Sistema de incentivos a produqao de energia a partir de fontes renovaveis (Decreto Legislativo Regional n° 26/2006/A, D. R. n.° 146, Serie I, 2006-07-31).

[18] — SIEST — Sistema de Incentivos a Energia Solar Termica para o Sector Residencial (Decreto Legislativo Regional n. o 29/2001/M, DR 293 SERIE I-A, 2001-12-20)

[19] — RCCTE FAQs, available, in 2008.07.31, in

http://www. adene. pt/ADENE/Canais/SubPortais/SCE/Informacao/Publicoemgeral/RSECE. htm

(http://www. adene. pt/NR/rdonlyres/FDF72595-33F6-4B4E-8904-

660506CB50B6/522/PRRCCTE. pdf).

[20] — ProSTO — Best Practice Implementation of Solar Thermal Obligations, Agreement N°: EIE/07/205/SI2.466799 (2008-2010).

[21] — Eficiency Energy National Action Plan (Resolugao do Conselho de Ministros n.° 80/2008, DR I Serie n.° 97, 2008-05-20 ).

The diffusion plan of PSE-ARFRISOL is structurated in three stages, as follows:

3.1. Development of Building Design guidelines. Using the final results of this project, two different guides will be developed:

3.1.1. New office buildings construction guidelines. The conditioning strategies tested during the project will lead to new office building design guidelines. This task will be done in collaboration with architects and other research groups.

3.1.2. Extend this study to other kind of buildings. The results of this project will be employed to develop new design guidelines in other areas: residential and non­residential (such as hospitals, shopping centers, etc.).

3.2. Development of systematic knowledge concerning energy efficiency in buildings. This task will be done regarding two complementary aspects:

3.2.1. Development of sets of educational resources, according to different knowledge levels. The know-how reached during the PSE-ARFRISOL project will be transposed directly to the different educational levels: Primary school, high school and university. The teachers of the Spanish Royal Society of Physics (RSEF) will lead this task,
together with architects, engineers and scientists. Complete sets of courses and educational resources -“Didactic Units”- will be developed according to the current pedagogical view of education. These documents, then, will be adaptable enough to the different educational levels existing in the society.

3.2.2. Development of diffusion documents for the rest of the society. A complete marketing campaign will be launched to change the people’s state of mind. This change will be held in a joint collaboration with public institutions such Town Halls or Regional Governments. This effort will be useful to support further actuations in the energy efficiency area. This task involves showing the Bioclimatic strategies in science festivals and other similar public events. The PSE-ARFRISOL team has got a interactive scale model manufactured to explain to the public how every strategy works in this kind of buildings. In addition, PSE — ARFRISOL will be presented in round tables, scientific conferences and congresses to communicate the final results. The aim of these actuations is to influence the public opinion and specially the construction sector.

4. CONCLUSION

After four years of investigation in the ARFRISOL project, the pursued results are:

— The five RDBP of this project will be singular buildings in the design and the solar heating and cooling systems.

— The constructions will have a high energy efficiency, with a saving of conventional energy between 80 and 90%. These data will be backed up by the monitoring of the building and the analyse of the energetic data collected.

— The solar devices and systems (like solar thermal collectors, absorption pumps and photovoltaic panels) used in the RDBP will be optimised for a reduced use of energy. In case that the system optimisation process produced any new development, it would be patented for marketing.

— The diffusion of the results will be carried out at different levels: from childhood (with educationals guidelines) to adult age (news, science festivals…) and into society (newspaper, tv, radio, etc.). The guidelines will be developed in educational modules that will be checked and validated in several schools chosen by sampling.

The final result would be to achieve a reduction of the conventional energy used for heating and cooling because of having changed the society mind. This goal is not only applicable to offices buildings but also to any kind of construction.

5. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This work has been supported by funds of the Spanish Ministry of Innovation and Science (MICINN). The authors would like to thank the press office of CIEMAT for the given help it. Also the Energy Efficiency of Building R&D Unit — CIEMAT would like to thank all the companies and Institutions included in PSE-ARFRISOL project.

6. REFERENCES

[1] MAGAZINE MAPHRE SECURITY 2008. ‘PSE-ARFRISOL una alternativa al ahorro energetico en edificios de oficinas’. By Heras Rincon Jeshs”.

[2] NEWSLETTER ASTURIAS FOUNDATION ENERGY 2008. ‘Asturias alberga uno de los prototipos mas novedosos del proyecto ARFRISOL’. By Heras Rincon Jeshs”.

[3] MAGAZINE ECO-CONSTRUCCION 2007. ‘PSE-ARFRISOL en pleno desarrollo’. By Heras Rincon Jeshs”.

[4] MAGAZINE ECO-CONSTRUCCION 2007. ‘Simulacion energetica y Frio Solar en PSE-

ARFRISOL”. By Heras Rincon, Jeshs.

[5] MAGAZINE TECNOAMBIENTE 2007. ‘PSE-ARFRISOL la alternativa para el ahorro de energi’a en la edificacion’. By Heras Rincon, Jeshs.

[6] MAGAZINE THE INSTALATOR 2007. ‘PSE-ARFRISOL busca reducir el consumo energetico en edificios de oficinas”. By Heras Rincon, Jeshs

[7] MAGAZINE NEW TECHNOLOGIES 2007. ‘PSE-ARFRISOL: Edificio CEDER’. By Heras Rincon, Jeshs.

[8] MAGAZINE SOLARNEWS 2007. ‘Simulacion energetica y Frio Solar en PSE-ARFRISOL’. By

Heras Rincon, Jeshs.

The first step towards improvement of technical knowledge and consequent extension of small scale RES market is the training of people involved in the supply chain of RES in the building and energy sector, thus creating a deeper knowledge of more sustainable building technologies and good practices for heat and power production and savings. This will support the installation of small-scale RES applications and energy saving systems in new or refurbished buildings. Better communication (i. e. information sharing) will be supported among all the actors in the RES sector: suppliers, installers, planners, users, etc. Information and communication are necessary to diffuse skills, techniques, ideas and a common understanding of the RES field, with deeper knowledge and awareness about RES opportunities and advantages among suppliers and users.

1.2. Target Groups

The target groups to which the action is directly addressed are mainly:

• SMEs associations involved in the house supply chain, to reach RES suppliers in the building system (installers, maintenance men, sellers, providers, etc.).

• Single enterprises of the building system.

• Professional associations of planners (architects, engineers, …).

• Private consultants in the energy field.

• Energy suppliers.

• Energy consumers: municipal, regional and national public sector. Private sector as industry, services (shops and commerce, banks and offices).

• Providers of products and services on renewable energies.

• Providers of materials and equipment for energy efficiency and maintenance companies.

• Secondary school teachers of subjects related to RES.

• House owners (including farmer owners of residential buildings).

• General public/consumers (RES demand).

1.3. Expected results

The direct outcomes of the BEST RESULT project are: basic and specialized training, workshops, meetings and info-desks addressing RES suppliers and communication, information events (info — points, meetings, conferences, training events, exhibits, etc.) and strategies to raise awareness of RES opportunities among users. Code of Practice and Guidelines on small-scale RES applications in buildings will be published. Exchange visits will permit to share know-how and practical experiences among partners. Web site and a common E-learning platform will be long-term activities contributing to the project objectives even after the end of the project. Also the collaboration and the coordination process within the partnership will be an example and a start for further common activities at European level.

1.5 Partners

Fourteen partners from six different countries of the European Union are developing the project. Those are:

CRACA (Centro regionale di Assistenza per la Cooperazione Artigiana, Societa Cooperativa) from Italy that is the project coordinator.

Unione Provinciale Artigiani — Confartigianato Padova from Italy.

Universita degli Studi di Padove — Dipartimento di Processi Chimicidell’Ingegneria from Italy.

GFE Energy Management SRL from Italy.

Chambers’ Group for the Development of Greek Isles from Greece.

SC Chiminform Data SA. from Romania.

NAPE (Narodowa Agencja Poszanowania Energii S. A.) from Poland.

Escola Superior de Tecnologia de Setubal from Portugal.

Universidad de Valladolid from Spain.

Escan, S. A. from Spain.

CRES (Centre for Renewable Energy Sources ) from Greece.

Fundacion Cener-Ciemat (Renewable Energy National Center), from Spain.

CARTIF, from Spain.

Fundacion Asturiana de la Energia from Spain.

The project is being financed whit Intelligent Energy funds of the European Union.

In workshops conducted on rural energy, women constituted approximately 40% of the participants. This is in addition to the seminar on energy and water usage which was given exclusively for women in Banga village. Also, about one-third of workshop facilitators were women. An energy institute for girls designed to cultivate their interest in SMET education and careers was conducted around the country with massive participation by girls from local schools. Several interests have been expressed by government, businesses and NGOs to use the Community Center facilities in Banga for manpower/workforce development training. The government in collaboration with private sector is also planning to use the new facility for training young women and girls on tourism and hospitality for the Kruger Park, as the park plans to open a gate in Mozambique soon. The enrollment of women in SMET disciplines at tertiary education institutions in the country has reason.

Shiraz power plant is a parabolic trough solar thermal power plant which uses parabolic trough collectors in order to produce electricity from sunlight. The parabolic trough collectors are structures with long rows of curved glass mirrors focusing the suns energy on an absorber pipe located along its focal line. These collectors arranged rows in the collector field. These collectors track the sun by rotating around a north-south axis. The heat transfer fluid (HTF), a synthetic oil, is circulated trough the pipes. Under normal operation the heated HTF leaves the collector with a specified collector outlet temperature and is pumped to a central power plant area. In the next stage, the HTF is passed through three heat exchangers where its energy is transferred to the power plants working fluid, which is water. The heated steam is used to drive a turbine generator to produce electricity. The solar thermal power plant specifications are presented in the Table 2.

This power plant implemented as a solar test facility site for assessing domestic potential of Iran in manufacturing and commissioning large scale parabolic trough solar power plants. On the other hand, long term operation of solar thermal power plants would be evaluated by this pilot solar thermal power plant.

Different facility of this power plant was designed and constructed by domestic manufacturer. These parts includes: Curved Mirrors, Parabolic Trough Structure, Instruments and Control devices and also Heat Transfer Fluid. One of the most important parts of parabolic trough power plants is absorber tube which was imported from Germany.

After the installation process, the first stage was testing the first loop. In this stage, the HTF was circulated in one loop and the oil increase water temperature in the prototype heat exchanger which was designed just for assessing operation of one loop. The operation of whole power plant was confirmed by testing the first loop operation. Figure 3 illustrates the steam generated by one loop in less than 30 minute. The HTF temperature received to 255 °C by a single loop in open loop operation. The operation was open loop because the HTF temperature decreases constantly by warming water, generating steam and injecting into air. When water decreases the water pump start to work and compensate the water shortage[3].

The next stage is total commissioning of parabolic trough power plant. The information of long term operation of the power plant will be used for future decision making. There is a comprehensive evaluation will be done on the collector field operation and maintenance and also power plant equipments life time. The other important parameter which could be assessed is the overall efficiency of the collector field[3].

There were different challenges for installing the first pilot power plant. The main challenge was that decision makers could not be easily convinced of the reliability of future solar power plant. Another critical challenge was the domestic potential for manufacturing solar systems and at last, Iranian experts lack of knowledge about solar systems.

Commissioning of this power plant and testing one loop for generating steam increased the decision maker’s tendency towards solar thermal power plants, and this will help deployment of CSP technologies in next step. However, by installing this project many different weaknesses of domestic manufacturer unclosed. In this respect, empowering domestic manufacturer potential by using foreign experts is vital.

The other significant challenge was the capital cost of this solar power plant which was implemented in small scale. The capital cost of this power plant is very high and it is expected that this price will decrease and approach the International solar thermal capital cost. This price is about 12000 $/kW which is not comparable with large scale solar power plants. It is expected that the solar power plant would be feasible in Iran with 30MW capacity or more.

"Europe needs a competition among communities to push for the best concepts for a broad introduction of solar energy in housing construction and urban development." [1]

On January, 23rd 2008, the European Commission delivered the first draft of the Directive, which aims at reorganising support schemes and targets for all renewable energy sources (RES), where renewable heating was recognised to play a key role in the sustainable and secure energy supply in the EU.

Article 12 foresees an obligation, for all the Member States, to ask for a minimum contribution by RES in delivering energy for new buildings and major refurbishment.

At the same time, the draft Directive highlights the urgent need for a simplification of the administrative burdens, which have so far seriously limited the diffusion of RES in buildings. Recommendations like “clearly defined responsibilities”, “ precise deadlines”, “streamlined and expedited administrative procedures”, “objective rules”, which are very often not met in the daily practice, are clearly set as priorities in the draft text.

This quite good general framework will need, of course, a remarkable effort in order to be implemented fruitfully at national level.

New Laboratory on Renewable Energy was created in Mari El State University (MARSU) with cooperation UNESCO Chair (VIESH) during 2005 — 2008 as essential part of course “Non­traditional and renewable sources of energy” (specialization “100900”) prepared for two groups of electrical engineering speciality.

Teaching with using new lab equipment has started in spring term of 2007. Nine lab kits were created and are implementing for in educational process.

Some lab kits are similar to described in section 2.1, others are different versions or new in comparison with described kits. Among the new lab kits are “Thermoelectric Generator,” “Tracking solar module” (Fig.9), “Electrolyzer and fuel cell” (Fig.10) (vertical arrangement), “Simulating and design of solar lighting system” (Fig.11), lab equipment for simulating hybrid system on the base of wind generator VEU — 500 (Fig.12) and solar module (installed outdoors). Many of described lab kits were created with help of students in the framework of diploma projects. This activity is stimulating self-dependence and acquirements of engineering skills.

Fig. 9. Lab kit for study tracking solar module (front side, left) and (back side, right)

The aleatory stratified amostral plan was used in the statistic evaluation. Basically, in this method, a subdivision of samples into sub-populations or groups is done, leading to smaller

errors. This is a consequence of a variation reduction between sample units of a same group, related to variation between sample units of different ones.

Sample size was determined in two stages. In the first one, a “pilot” sample was created to raise previous information about the population, considering a maximum error of 5%. This value was also adopted to test’s significance level. The second stage is the sample calculation, in which pilot sample results were used. Statistic classic equations, detailed by LEITE [2] were used for calculations of stratified sampling with piece’s casual distribution.

Since the number of analyzed factors is small and it was necessary to identify possible grouping and number of groups, the neural networks technique was used. This method is very efficient for problems of multivariate analysis, grouping and prediction, besides hierarchic agglomerative techniques: centroide and Ward [3].

Euclidian distance, which is a multivariate measure [3], was used in pieces selection into the groups. In agreement to data complexity a technique was selected to get to results. Also, it was developed in Matlab a special software to perform the statistic data treatment.

After data treatment and conglomerates detachment, preliminary percentages of the analysis’ factors were calculated (Table 1).

During the data processing, it was identified that the problems found in systems were repetitive. This fact allowed a reduction in the number of samples to be visited.

3. Sizing estimation and energy savings software (Long term performance)

As a part of this project, softwares were developed as assistant tools that help to identify the main characteristics of the studied system. One of them, developed in Matlab, estimates the necessary collector area and the storage tank volume, through radiation calculations [4] in tilt and arbitrary oriented planes for any location and economy level required, based on the modified model of F-Chart [4]. Shading incidence in solar collectors arrays is introduced in these calculations to achieve its influence value over monthly and annual energy economy generated by the solar system. To validate obtained data, this software also simulates the value of monthly electric energy bill for studied residences, through daily bath habits and other family use of electric household appliances.

Shading incidence values and consequent solar radiation reduction over the solar collectors’ plane were calculated using Ecotect 5.20 (Figure 3), which is an environment analysis tool, and a scripting, developed by the project’s team. Thus, it was possible to estimate the reduction, due to these shading data, of annual F-chart value for each studied system.

WINTER SUMMER

Figure 3 — Shading calculation for a studied solar system

Moreover, studies indicate that hourly data is the most adjusted for shading analysis, because, similar shading values can promote different reductions in the incident radiation depending on the hour observed.

A. Duta1*, I. Visa1, C. Jaliu1, M. Visa2 and D. Perniu1

1 Transilvania University of Brasov, Product Design for Sustainable Development Centre, B-dul Eroilor 29,

500036 Brasov, Romania

2 College for Natural Sciences, Brasov, Romania
* Corresponding Author, a. duta@unitbv. ro

Abstract

The promotion of renewable energy systems among the young people represents a must in the education of advancing good life and good environment. One of the first steps in this process consists in training the teaching staff to be able to accurately provide, the knowledge from this field, to the pupils. This idea was the main starting point of the Socrates-Comenius 2.1 project “Sustainable Energy — An European Training Tool” (SEE EU Tool), begun in 2005. The project, gathering a multi-actor partnership, involves education providers and beneficiaries from eight countries and aims to develop a curriculum and a training course in the field of renewable energy systems and sustainable environment solutions dedicated for in-service teachers training. The SEE EU Tool project provides an European frame for teacher in-service training on sustainable development, focusing on renewable energy systems for environment protection. The paper presents an analysis and a synthesis of the project results: the frame, the needs analysis, the curriculum, the specific methodology and the main outcomes.

Keywords: education, renewable energy systems, in-service training course

1. Introduction

At international level, the necessity of raising awareness towards sustainability in the energy sector is well-known, from both perspectives: producers and users. The subject of renewable energy is known as being important, but it is widely recognized that it is a lack of specific knowledge, [1].

Education of youngsters in the field of renewable energy systems is important in preparing the future scientists, developers and consumers in the field, as well as in directly supporting the sustainable development aim, [2]. The first requirement in pupils’ education consists in training a core of teaching staff able to provide accurately, the knowledge in this field. This idea was the main starting point of the Socrates-Comenius 2.1 project “Sustainable Energy — An European Training Tool” (SEE EU Tool), that runs beginning with 2005, [3, 4].

Close to its end, the project developed the curriculum and training instruments, based on an extended needs analysis; testing courses were run as short sessions (2007) and full course (2008). The paper presents an analysis and a synthesis of the project results and of its main outcomes.