Trieste – Rijeka – Ljubljana study tour

EMILIE partners, local SMEs, public authorities, university representatives and other invited stakeholders had an opportunity to visit the SunLab in Italy, SunCool in Croatia, and InfraSUN in Slovenia, and take part in mutual learning sessions during which the partners’ technical experts presented the pilots and gave insights into first measuring results.

The study tour started in Trieste on the 27^th of May, visiting the SunLab plant that is placed on a laboratory building owned by AREA Science Park and that aims to reduce energy consumption in the selected building as well as to promote and spread the use of solar cooling technology for building air conditioning in order to gain an increasing independence from fossil fuels thus promoting a “low carbon economy”.

Next day, the morning part of the study visit was devoted to SunCool pilot plant that is implemented in Rijeka, on a laboratory building owned by the University of Rijeka Faculty of Engineering, where solar cooling technology is used for heating/cooling of premises but also to great extent for education and research purposes.

In the afternoon, the participants were headed to Ljubljana, to visit the InfraSUN pilot plant that is implemented and tested at the Jožef Stefan Institute (JSI) headquarter (C building) and where a combination of various solar thermal technologies is used to evaluate, demonstrate and promote a concept of a new infrastructural economic model to facilitate the use of solar energy and to cut down expenses for the end users in tertiary sector.

Participants’ feedback received and interest for the EMILIE study tour has demonstrated once again that live visits and hands-on-approach are the best knowledge transfer method and that these kind of transnational events are an excellent tool when it comes to new technology presentations.