Energy and Environment Office Activities
History
An energy and environment office is usually started by a group of people in the local area, who gather and form an association with the common aim to promote environmentally friendly energy solutions. The initiators are mostly enthusiastic people who are already involved in energy and environment activities; but in this way they strengthen their work. The first energy and environment offices are more than 20 years old, while the newest has existed less than a year.
In the beginning the offices worked mainly with technical questions in connection with utilization of wind and solar energy. This was before fully developed products existed on the market, and every job was almost a small development project. But concurrently with the development of wind turbines, solar heaters, biogas plants, etc., the tasks of the offices have changed during the last years. The offices now work more with the interaction between all the different things that influence the energy consumption: domestic heat consumption, possibilities for electricity conservation, waste management, water savings, transport structure, etc. Put shortly: Green Planning.
Therefore many of the offices have changed their name from Energy Office to Energy and Environment Office. The main task is still to inform on, and initiate renewable energy, which is the part of the work that gains subsidy for the time being. But this work is now connected to all the other factors in the planning that must follow, if it shall make any sense to aim at covering a larger part of the energy consumption by renewable energy.
The energy and environment offices have taken on a large task: to make the society function environmentally sustainable. A lot of resources are needed to make it happen - much more than are available today. Thus the Danish energy and environment offices work on establishing several Green Offices together with other Danish organizations dealing with energy and environment.