Energy Wise E-Learning Suite

Why is ENERGY-WISE needed?

European companies need a secure supply of energy at affordable prices in order to maintain our standards of living, run businesses, deliver public services and to transport goods and people. At the same time, it is generally accepted, by most businesses, that the negative effects of energy use, particularly fossil fuels, on the environment must be reduced.

The main purpose of the ENERGY-WISE project is to improve the capacity of small businesses across Europe to carry out their own preliminary energy Audits as part of an assessment of their energy usage and subsequently, to use these results to inform the development of their energy management strategy.  We will do so by developing a simulation/computer gaming based e-learning suite of training materials which will assist staff in small businesses in acquiring the skills and knowledge necessary to carry out such preliminary energy audits.

ENERGY-WISE project objectives

The main objective of the Energy Web Interface for Skills Enabling (ENERGY-WISE) project is to improve the ability of European SMEs to become more energy efficient.

Training in Energy Management techniques provides administrative and technical training for energy managers, building operators, and others responsible for energy-efficiency with the opportunity to save energy, reduce carbon emissions, meet their organisation’s environmental targets and save money.

This will enable participating small businesses to contribute to the European (Kyoto) targets for CO2 emission reduction, save money on their energy bills and be more competitive in the world economy.

The ENERGY-WISE project partners

The ENERGY-WISE partnership includes two e-learning technology specialists, one college, one innovation demonstration centre & two SME Intermediary organisations covering six European Union countries.

See the “Contacts Page” for more details on the project partners.

The initial two-years’ of the project have been funded by the Leonardo Programme during which time the project partners will seek to develop a suite of e-learning training materials/tools & a computer based “ENERGY-WISE” Business Game and to validate the suitability of the ENERGY-WISE approach for as many European countries and sectors as possible.

Click here to see the project video.

Technical developments

The ENERGY-WISE project will be based on educational gaming technologies and other e-learning materials which are similar to those developed for the Leonardo Programme supported InTeLS (www.intels.biz) and YENTELS (www.yentels.com) projects. It will build on the lessons learnt by the InTeLS & YENTELS project partners and the underpinning technology platforms that they developed.

The project website and associated training materials has been developed by Bulgarian partner Virtech. They have used the DRUPAL Content Management System as a development platform in order to make the translation and amendment/contextualisation of ENERGY-WISE materials as straightforward as possible so that new and existing project partners can make changes to the ENERGY-WISE website and materials without requiring the technical assistance of Virtech.

UK technical partner, PixeLearning, have also enhanced their proprietary games development platform in a manner which makes the translation, amendment and contextualisation of the ENERGY-WISE game straightforward and speedy for both new and existing project partners.