EU-GCC Clean Energy Network II (CENII)

The EU-GCC Clean Energy Network, funded by the European Union, initiated its activities in 2010, as a response to the common EU GCC interest for strategic clean energy cooperation. The Network aims to act as a catalyst and element of coordination for the development of cooperation on clean energy, including the related policy and technology aspects among various stakeholders in the EU and GCC countries. At this stage, the activities of the Network need to be further developed and should aim to become sustainable over the mid-term.
With these objectives in mind, in December 2015 the European Union launched the “EU GCC Clean Energy Network II” (CENII) project. The overall objective of the CENII is to enhance EU-GCC energy relations by developing new appropriate structures and instruments and by maintaining existing ones for practical cooperation activities of mutual interest in the area of clean energy. Hence, building on the achievements of the EU-GCC Clean Energy Network since 2010, the project was necessary to further the cooperation opportunities in the energy sector.
An important operational element of the Network is the working groups that are established to examine opportunities and further develop cooperation in the areas of:

1. Renewable Energy Sources;
2. Energy Efficiency & Demand Side Management;
3. Clean Natural Gas & related Clean Technologies;
4. Electricity Interconnections & Market Integration;
5. Carbon Capture & Storage.

Climate change aspects were considered across all 5 topics. The EU-GCC Clean Energy Network II provides a wide variety of services and offering to its Members. Networking and fostering of partnership between EU and GCC institutions are the key services that are provided.
The stakeholders from both regions participating in the Network include, inter alia, energy-related research entities, universities, administrations, utilities, industry, policy makers and relevant stakeholders from the energy and climate change sectors as appropriate. Even if the dialogue is primarily established at a regional level, the Network will include exchanges at bilateral level in order to share best practices in a better and more efficient way and identify new fields of cooperation in the clean energy domain.
CEPS was part of a consortium, led by KOMIS, and was committed to the following tasks: preparation of Training Courses (Material), implementation of Webinars, preparation of Network Publications, facilitation of research cooperation proposals, elaboration of Project Fiches for interesting project ideas that come out of WGs, support and/or hosting for Brussels based events and other project assignments.