POWERBASE facilitates green transition of emergency response organisations
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POWERBASE project improves working conditions and facilitates the green transition of emergency response organisations.
Twelve emergency response and research organisations have joined forces to prepare future procurement of renewable energy technologies to set the path towards low-emission emergency operations and significantly improve workplace and accommodation conditions of emergency responders and sheltered people. The project officially kicks off today in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Bonn, 14 October 2024, Recent disasters like the cross-border flooding in central/eastern Europe, wildfires in Greece, and the earthquake in Turkey have led to large-scale emergency rescue operations. As critical infrastructure is often damaged, emergency responders rely on mobile diesel generators for mobile energy supply. The use of diesel leads to greenhouse gas emissions: E.g. during the Turkey-Syria earthquakes in February 2023, 25,000 emergency responders were deployed for search and rescue missions lasting approximately 10 days. For this, the necessary bases of operations needed ~3,500,000 L of diesel and produced an estimated ~9250 t of CO2 emission. Further these generators lower air quality in the direct vicinity, produce heat, vibrations and sounds, and pose safety threats for the emergency responders and sheltered people. Currently, there is no operational technology for green, mobile power supply that meets the needs of emergency responders.
POWERBASE aims to address this technology gap and provide the basis for future procurement of promising renewable energy technologies by emergency response organisations. Working from an end-user perspective, POWERBASE will analyse the needs of emergency operations for different disaster situations, including wildfires in very hot climatic conditions, cross-border flooding with a high number of displaced people, and an earthquake scenario in a rural mountainous region. The project will also map the available technologies and potential new innovations, which can meet these needs in future. This will help emergency response organisations to bridge this gap and channel the investment in low-emission, reliable, self-sufficient, mobile power supply for emergency shelters and bases of operations.
“Under the European Climate Law, the EU aims to reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions by at least 55% by 2030, and become climate-neutral by 2050. To face the reality of the future and to be able to fulfil our duties in civil protection at the same time, we need innovative procurement tools like POWERBASE. This project will enable a step change in the green transition of emergency response organisations and significantly improve the working and accommodation conditions during disaster response.” (Sabine Lackner, president of the German Federal Agency for Technical Relief)
POWERBASE is supported by the EU in the framework of the Horizon Europe research and innovation programme with 1 million €. The project started on October 1, 2024, and will end on September 30, 2025.
The parties involved
POWERBASE is coordinated by the German Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW), and brings together the European emergency response organisations Austrian Red Cross, Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency, Ministry of Interior France, Ministry of Interior Italy, Hungarian Charity Service Of the Order of Malta, Slovenian Samaritan Association and the Dutch national Fire Department. Their expertise is complemented by leading research institutes, procurer organisations and legal experts Fraunhofer Gesellschaft (Germany), Center for Security Studies (Greece) and Vieira Costa Gomes – Sociedade de Advogados RL (Portugal), as well as management consulting and dissemination experts – ARTTIC Innovation GmbH (Germany).
For further information:
Website: Will be launched soon
LinkedIn: POWERBASE project
Project Contact:
Marijn van Jaarswald
ARTTIC Innovation GmbH
marijn.vanjaarsveld@arttic-innovation.de
Project Coordinator
Alexander Rösner
Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW)
Project Press Contact:
Florian Riegel
ARTTIC Innovation GmbH
florian.riegel@arttic-innovation.de
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement number 101167787.
The information and views set out in this press release are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of the European Union. Neither the European Union institutions and bodies nor any person acting on their behalf may be held responsible for the use which may be made of the information contained therein.
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