Successful demonstration of SiEnE at 16th meeting of EDA's Energy and Environment Working Group

On 22 September 2020, the SiEnE was successfully introduced at a meeting of the Energy and Environment Working Group (EnE WG), part of the European Defence Agency (EDA).

The working group’s meeting was devoted to discussing climate change and its implications for defence, as well as the reviewing of further developments in the field. The virtual meeting was attended by a large number of international defence experts, as well as civil representatives from the industry and academia.

The Slovenian representatives at the working group, Col. Robert Šipec from the Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Slovenija (Si MoD) and Matej Gajzer from TECES, successfully presented the newly established SiEnE partnership. Given interest in the concept of bringing together civil and defence stakeholders within defence programmes, the presentation was met with strong interest: within just two days of the presentation, we had received more than 5 offers of international cooperation.

The 16th Energy and Environment Working Group’s meeting held virtually was devoted to discussing climate change and its implications for defence, and the reviewing of any further developments in the field.

This was the first time that Slovenian representatives had publicly presented the SiEnE partnership as a single point of coordination for developmental cooperation with Slovenian partners in the context of international projects. The SiEnE project attracted strong interest: within just two days of the presentation, we had received more than 5 offers of cooperation.

The SiEnE partnership represents an additional opportunity to strengthen the international visibility of Slovenian stakeholders and to facilitate their integration into defence programmes and value chains.

About EnE WG

The Energy and Environment Working Group (EnE WG) was created as a part of the European Defence Agency (EDA) in 2014. The main goal of the EnE WG is to address energy and environmental challenges in defence, and to find synergies with other working groups, or spheres of work, within the EDA and NATO.

The EnE WG’s key areas of action are associated with the following: energy efficiency, renewable energy, environmental protection, climate change, resilience in defence, energy management systems, water and waste management, the circular economy, legislative policy, and energy and environmental security.

Slovenian interests in the EnE WG are represented by Col. Robert Šipec, as the official representative of the Slovenian Ministry of Defence (Si MoD), and Matej Gajzer, a civil expert from TECES. Based on their engagement in January 2020, in Slovenia we have been responsible for drafting the development & technology baselines for potential international cooperation projects within the EDA financial perspective from 2021 to 2027.

The entire process of preparing more than 20 development & technology project proposals across various TRLs (technology readiness levels) took place between February and June 2020. It mainly addressed technologies and systems for energy management, and individual building blocks for deployable smart caps.