The Regional Director of Energy stressed the need to "promote sustainability in Azorean companies through energy," boosting their competitiveness and their position in the market. This will be achieved by providing "incentives for the adoption of cutting-edge practices in the rational use of energy."
 
Andreia Carreiro spoke in Lisbon on the sidelines of a meeting on "Energy Efficiency - Storage Technologies for Trade and Service Sectors," an event that brought together several experts. On the occasion, she emphasised the importance of the Region's regular participation in international initiatives that foster the sharing of the best practices in this area.
 
The Regional Director stated that the activities in the trade and service sectors were responsible for the consumption of about 35% of the total electricity produced in the Azores in 2018. According to her, "it is fundamental to promote the energy efficiency of Azorean companies, ensuring high standards of sustainability of the regional economy based on this vector."
 
"The energy policies pursued by these entities should be in line with the emerging solutions and technologies in this area, both in terms of production for self-consumption and storage," said Andreia Carreiro. In this regard, she noted that this option, "combined with the optimised energy management of buildings, positions entrepreneurs as active energy users, the so-called prosumers, who can be beneficial for network system services."
 
According to the Regional Director, the implementation of these practices is leveraged by the Regional Government, through Proenergia, an incentive system for the production and storage of energy from renewable sources. The amendments introduced to this system have been recently published, which now cover the support for "storage systems, thus responding to the needs of Azorean companies. It will enable them to invest in innovative systems with a reduced final financial effort."
 
On the occasion, Andreia Carreiro also pointed out that the incentive system for business competitiveness - Competir+, "also acknowledges the preponderance of best practices and systems in promoting energy efficiency and the respective economic impacts on companies. In fact, it provides for an increase than can reach 2.5% in the support granted to projects that include this essential component."
 
"The Regional Directorate for Energy has carried out a very interesting work with the Azorean entities that have submitted their projects under Competir +," stated the government official. In this context, "the Government's action in the area of energy has been guided towards promoters by optimising their capacity to generate wealth from savings achieved through energy efficiency and by creating more and better jobs in the Azores."