EREN, Ente Regional de la Energía de Castilla y León, was created by the Regional Government in December 1996, under law 7/1996, as an energy managing body aimed to develop the most appropriate regional energy policies, always following those guidelines established by the European Union, on the basis of the following three principles stated by the White Paper €An energy policy for the European Union€: security of energy supply, competitiveness and environmental protection.

EREN was established as a tool for the Castilla y León€s economic and social representatives of facing up to these questions related to the SMEs and citizens energy saving and efficiency, at the same moment promoting the renewable energies use and the energy saving and efficiency and, developing the region great energy potential, always taking into the best consideration the environmental balance, as a way of contributing to the regional sustainable development.

Its main Objectives are the followings:

• To ensure a permanent and economically feasible energy supply.
• To diversify the energy sources supply.
• To exploit the local and renewable energies.
• To develop an energy policy based on the energy efficiency.
• To tackle the emissions of CO2 and other gasses safeguarding the environment.

to help achieve these objectives, the Law 7/1996 conferred upon EREN the following duties:

• Promoting and developing different programmes to improve the energy saving and efficiency.
• Elaborating programmes of rationalisation of the energy use.
• Promoting the development and application of renewable energies at a local level.
• Encouraging the research and development of energy and environmental technologies together in co-operation with other public and private entities.
• Advising the regional government in energy matters.
• Co-ordinating energy projects and programmes at a local, regional, national and international level.
• Organising training and programmes in co-operation with universities and educational centres.
• Establishing co-operation agreements with other public and private institutions and promoting the participation of PYMES of the region.

Areas of expertise: The main ACTIONS carried out by EREN in the energy field aim to promote energy saving and exploit renewable energy sources, promoting the regional companies competitiveness and the citizens quality of life, thus contributing directly to the global economic development of the region:

• Energy planing actions
• Energy saving and efficiency actions
• Consultance and advice actions
• Energy programmes management and co-operation actions
• Information dissemination and training actions.
• Promoting investments.

Target audience: EREN works according with the regional guidelines promoting energy efficiency and renewable energies in the Autonomous Community of Castilla y León. The traget audience is the Castilla y León population in general, specially energy promoters, manufacturers ..., local entities and education and industrial sectors.