XPRESS: A facilitator for public-private collaboration in the energy sector

Green Public Procurement, through which public administrations incorporate sustainable economic and environmental criteria into their purchasing decisions, provides effective public support for environmentally innovative SMEs. It can help reduce investment risks, create niches for the emergence of environmental technologies, and facilitate their adoption and dissemination.

Aware of this issue, the European XPRESS project aims to facilitate the introduction of innovative renewable energy technologies and increase their share in final consumption through public-private collaboration. Specifically, XPRESS, composed of 16 European partners and funded with €3 million by the European Commission through the H2020 program, will identify low-carbon energy needs in municipalities in the United Kingdom, Italy, Norway, Germany, Sweden, Spain, Denmark, Slovakia, Portugal, and Belgium, with the prospect of extending solutions to other countries. The project will also enhance the application of Green Public Procurement towards technologies that increase the competitiveness of innovative SMEs, thus promoting renewable energy.

Furthermore, XPRESS will create a web platform that will enable interaction between public buyers, innovative SMEs, and end-users. This platform will be developed and coordinated by the Spanish technological center CIRCE, which will also contribute to the preparation of best practice examples and the organization of workshops in various Spanish cities.

The results obtained within the XPRESS project will be presented through a series of policy-making workshops that will bring together interested representatives from cities and companies across Europe to create policy recommendations focused on the thematic areas mentioned in the European Union Urban Agenda as well as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

All of this will be carried out by a European consortium in the best position to actively promote a constructive dialogue between the public and private sectors and to encourage innovative investments in the field of renewable energy. The value of the consortium lies in its extensive experience in this field and its interdisciplinary nature, as it is composed of experts from various areas.