SUPPORTERS - ADVISORY BOARD
MAIN CHARACTERISTICS
In the first RenewIT General Meeting in Chemnitz, Germany in April 2014, it was agreed to set up an Advisory Board for the project, to provide external expertise in addition to contacts already established through the Case Studies.
As its name implies, the Advisory Board is entirely advisory. It has no decision-making powers over the project and its members have no formal responsibilities or obligations to the project.
The Advisory Board held an online introduction to the RenewIT project in October 2014.
1.1 Objectives
The overall objectives of the Advisory Board are:
- To ensure that the project retains an outward-looking approach, meeting the needs of industry and research, vendors and end-users of Data Centres, renewable energy, energy efficiency and smart cities while advancing the state of the art
- To inform industrial practitioners and researchers of the progress on the project, including by encouraging them to become early adopters, disseminators and users of the project results.
1.2 Activities
The AB will achieve these objectives by:
- Advising the consortium on direction of research and requirements in order to:
- Achieve valuable scientific outcomes
- Help to ensure market uptake
- Monitoring project progress, including:
- Informal internal reviews of selected deliverables
- Comments and feedback on the results and general progress
- Opinion on other issues raised
- Promoting RenewIT results through:
- Use of the RenewIT tool and encouragement to others to use it, and to provide feedback
- Some AB members may issue their own press releases to publicise the project and their involvement in it
- Acting as early adopters of the metrics and monitoring system
- Further exploitation, development and commercialisation of the results
- Raising awareness of the RenewIT project to members’ companies and institutions in webinars and presentations
- In return, RenewIT will provide regular feedback on project results and a collegial forum to discuss the overlap of energy efficiency and renewable energy sources in Data Centres
The majority of interaction is online: regular emails at which topics can be raised and discussed, and more formal scheduled teleconferences and webinars 3-4 times during the course of the project.
In addition, we will aim to hold one or two face-to-face meetings during course of the project, preferably to coincide with project meetings convened as general or technical meetings.
A survey on the functionality of the RenewIT Online Tool, which also acts as a focus for the overall approach taken by RenewIT, is currently being conducted among the members of the Advisory Board and their contacts.