Editorial
	Towards energy self-sustaining farms: Solar PV+Biogas plants to satisfy electrical and thermal energy needs

The self production of energy to support farming activities, by taking advantage of all available renewable resources, combined to a greater efficiency in service management, are goals that farms can achieve today, with benefits also to agricultural outputs. Improving energy efficiency in addition at introducing Solar PV and Biogas plants to fulfill thermal and electrical energy requirements help farmers to considerably increase energy performance and decrease overall costs.

A Biogas plant accelerates the anaerobic digestion of residues (animal manures, farm products, etc.), generating a highly energetic biogas, with 50-70% content of methane. Biogas is then turned into energy at the farm through a cogeneration engine (CHP) for the production of both electricity and heat, enabling in most cases to meet the entire heat demand, thus achieving nearly zero fossil fuel consumption. Moreover, the solid residue available in the site after the digestion process can be utilized as a high quality fertilizer. The energy consumption for fertilization and irrigation can be totally covered by the Solar PV plant during spring and summer seasons, hence reducing production costs and decreasing environmental impacts.

In Italy, agro-energy and energy efficiency have proven to be technically feasible and cost-effective solutions to enable farmers to improve agricultural productivity and livelihood, whilst enhancing natural resources.

The use of photovoltaic panels combined with electric energy and heat derived from agricultural and animal residues is a "distributed generation" system that has a great potential of application also in many countries of the Southern Mediterranean Basin, as revealed by recent studies and scenarios carried out within MED DESIRE Project.

	Update on MED-DESIRE project
	Online MED-DESIRE website

MED-DESIRE project web portal is finally online at www.med-desire.eu.

The website will be available in 4 languages (English, Italian, Spanish and Arabic) and is divided into several sections aiming at providing a general overview of the project, the objectives, the partnership, the expected results and outputs of the project.

The news section is constantly updated and allows users to be aware of all the MED-DESIRE developments, the project state of the art and the activities envisaged.

The project website is one of the main communication tools of MED-DESIRE, together with the social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Flickr).

	MED-DESIRE launching communication event in Bari

On March 31 Puglia Region and ARTI organized the International Conference “A solar future in the Mediterranean”, for presenting to a wide audience the MED-DESIRE project. The event provided the opportunity for companies, technicians, researchers, institutions and associations to discuss about the national and international energy policies, the project goals, the business opportunities for solar technologies in the Mediterranean Sea Basin, but also to exchange information on experiences of cooperation and good practices in the solar energy sector.

Continue

	Technical Roundtable on Solar market Constraints and Opportunities in the Mediterranean

During the Bari International Conference the technical roundtable “Mediterranean Solar Market Constraints and Opportunities” took place to investigate cooperation opportunities in distributed solar technology markets in the Mediterranean Basin.

What emerged from the discussion is that on both Shores of the Mediterranean Sea the issue of distributed energy is a well-established priority in the energy policy agenda.

Continue

	The Third project meeting in Bari

The third MED-DESIRE Steering Committee and Technical & Scientific Committee meetings took place in Bari-Italy on the 1st of April 2014 and was organized by the Coordinator Puglia Region and its implementing agency ARTI. The TSC was mainly devoted to planning the country specific actions that must be implemented in WP5 – Tools to remove barriers preventing distributed solar technology uptake by local markets coordinated by CIEMAT and WP6 – Innovative financial schemes and market stimulation tools to spread energy efficiency and distributed solar energy technology coordinated by the Italian Ministry of Environment, Land and Sea. The actions to be implemented are mostly training, capacity building, stakeholders involvement, elaboration/adaptation of financial instruments and solar ordinances.

Continue

	Capitalization activities
	ENPI solar projects second coordination meeting in Beirut

On May 13, 2014 a meeting was held at the Chamber of Commerce, Industry & Agriculture of Beirut and Mount Lebanon in Beirut aiming to share updates on activities already implemented and upcoming activities for each of the four ENPI CBC MED projects targeting the solar sector in Lebanon, and to discuss cooperation possibilities between these projects.
The meeting was attended by representatives of SHAAMS, MEDSOLAR, FOSTEr in MED and MED-DESIRE projects. The participants presented the progress of works in each of their respective projects and the upcoming events that may require cooperation with the other projects.

Continue

	Focus on MED-DESIRE partners
	Renewable energy and energy efficiency in Egypt

In Egypt renewable energy projects enjoy customs duty exemption. In June 2012 the Cabinet established specific fund for financing renewable energy projects. In January 2013 EgyptERA (Egyptian Electricity Regulatory Agency) adopted a net-metering policy that allows small-scale renewable energy projects to feed in the electricity grid. The Government has allocated more than 7.600 km2 of desert land for deployment of future public and private wind farms.

The implementation of large scale utility projects has given the Country the opportunity to build its national human capacities in various aspects of renewable energy. Around 40% of the solar field of the concentrated solar power (CSP) plant at Kuraymat was generated locally and the local content reaches 20-30% of the wind farms in Egypt.

Egypt is also working to upgrading Energy Efficiency both in the supply and the demand side. Most of the lighting used in Egypt is responsible for the system peak time electricity production. The Ministry of Electricity and Renewable Energy applied different programs to replace incandescent lamps with energy saving ones. Also, the work extends to reduce fuel consumption in thermal power stations (now 207 gm oil equivalent per kWh) to around 7%. In addition,a national program for taxi fuel switching has been started many years ago to replace gasoline with natural gas. In this regard, an Energy Efficiency Unit has been established in the Cabinet to plan and coordinate policies and actions needed to promote and implement EE measures in different sectors.

However, mandatory EE codes for residential buildings (2006), for commercial buildings (2009), and for governmental buildings (2011) are adopted. Minimum energy performance standards with mandatory labeling schemes have been adopted for refrigerators, freezers, washing machines, air conditioners, CFLs, and electric water heaters.

CSP plants in Kuraymat

	The Egyptian  New and Renewable Energy Authority - NREA

In 1986 New and Renewable Energy Authority (NREA) has been established to act as the national focal point for expanding efforts to develop and introduce renewable energy technologies to Egypt on a commercial scale together with implementation of related energy conservation programmes. In February 2008 SCE (Supreme Council of Energy) approved a national strategy for renewable energy states the following “Satisfy 20% of the generated electricity by renewable energies by 2020, including 12% from wind energy, i.e., reaching more than 7200 MW grid-connected wind farms”. In addition, the SCE approved a solar energy target of 3500 MW by 2027.

Nowadays, NREA established 550 MW of wind energy at Zafarana region, Gulf of Suez. In addition, there are more than 1500 MW under construction and development. Furthermore, NREA established the first integrated solar thermal power plant at Kuraymat with capacity of 140 MW. In this regard, there are more than 300 MW of solar energy projects; both CSP and PV are under developing. Renewable energy projects are currently under developing through different schemes international tenders, Build Own Operate, BOO, Independent Power Producer, IPP, through a set of incentives.
Also, NREA is working in energy efficiency and has a set of labs to test and certify home appliances, such as air conditioners, refrigerators, washing machines, solar water heaters and CFL lambs.
Furthermore, NREA is sharing in regional and international research projects with different entities, such as EU, World Bank, Italian Government, UNDP, UNEP.