The primary target group of FIRE is small and medium sized companies (SME) of the European Energy Sector which has an annual turnover of €10 billion and employs 200,000 people.

It is made up predominately of SMEs. The EU has recognised its importance and has allocated increased funding for this thematic sector in its new framework programme.

The facilitation of SMEs is seen as fundamental to overcoming the challenges of the energy sector.

Renewable energy is one of few areas that can impact almost all economic and social sectors. All companies can benefit from renewable energy as end users, and therefore reduce or eliminate their dependence of non-renewable energy sources.

Renewable energy, together with energy savings and energy efficiency, the only source to secure our future in a sustainable way. There is a broad variety of renewable energy sources, especially hydro, wind, tidal, wave, bio-energy, solar and geothermal sources yet despite this availability, the EU is increasingly dependent on external energy sources and greenhouse gas emissions are on the increase.

There is growing awareness in Europe of the dependence on foreign fossil fuels, especially from unstable areas such as the Middle East and Russia. The EU green paper on security of supply estimates that 70% of EU’s energy needs will be covered by imported fuels within 20-30 years, compared to 50% today.

Based on known oil reserves and the worldwide consumption rate, most estimates suggest this reserve has only 50 more years of production left in it. By increasing the innovativeness of European SMEs in the renewable energy sector, FIRE will contribute to increasing the uptake in renewable energy alternatives and thus reducing European dependency on fossil fuels.

FIRE is there to support you and to guide you into the FP7 programme of research and development.