Who are the “Builders” of the Baltic Sea’s Energy Future?

Article written by: Phoebe Nedia

The Baltic Sea Region has made a bold promise to itself: energy independence. Clean, locally produced, resilient to geopolitical shocks. It’s a goal that sits at the top of policy agendas from Helsinki to Hamburg. But grand visions tend to stall somewhere between the boardroom and the street. So the real question isn’t whether the region can get there — it’s who is actually going to do the building.

If your mind jumped to national governments or large energy corporations, you might be surprised. The Energy Circle project points firmly to two less obvious but crucial groups: Business Support Organizations (BSOs) and Local Public Authorities (LPAs). These are the organisations closest to communities, businesses, and the daily realities of the energy transition — and right now, they are both underequipped and underestimated.

The Two Unlikely “Builders”

To understand why BSOs and LPAs matter so much, look no further than Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. When a hotel owner in a national park, a manufacturer in Rostock, or a cultural institution on the Baltic coast wants to cut energy costs and shift to renewables, they don’t call Brussels. They call someone local — someone who knows their sector, their building, and their budget. MVeffizient, an initiative of the State Energy and Climate Protection Agency of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (LEKA MV), is exactly that organisation.

BSO — Business Support Organizations:  Already embedded in local business networks and trusted advisors to SMEs. Best positioned to become “One-Stop-Energy-Shops” — central hubs for energy consultancy and circular economy guidance

LPA — Local Public Authorities:  City councils, regional planners, municipal bodies. They control procurement, zoning, and long-term planning — the levers that turn one-off energy projects into region-wide

Research on stakeholder collaboration in Baltic Sea urban districts confirms this logic. The AREA 21 project, which ran across seven BSR cities, found that bringing together diverse local actors — public authorities, energy utilities, property owners, and citizens — under a shared Energy Improvement District concept produced far better outcomes than top-down approaches driven by administrations or utilities alone. The insight is simple but often ignored: the people with the most contextual knowledge should be leading the planning.

“Up to now these strategies are mainly developed by the administration or maybe by the energy utility on its own.” — Interreg Baltic Sea Region, Rethinking Energy in the BSR

That dynamic is exactly what Energy Circle and similar projects are trying to change.

Five Walls That Keep Getting in the Way

Most of the organisations that should be leading the transition are being held back by remarkably consistent obstacles. Here is what the research actually says about each one.

1. The knowledge gap that breeds paralysis

Circular energy models demand specialized expertise that most BSOs and LPAs simply haven’t had reason to build. A case study from Gulbene Municipality found this knowledge gap creates real psychological hesitation — organisations wait for certainty before acting, and the transition stalls

2. No map for the long game

The BSR has no shortage of one-off energy interventions — but a structured, long-term planning framework at the local level has largely been absent. Without one, isolated actions risk locking in decisions that block better options down the road.

3. Wanting to act, but lacking the capacity

Wanting to act is not the same as being equipped to act. Many BSOs and LPAs lack the staff capacity and technical know-how to see complex circular energy projects through — a challenge mirrored by SMEs, which account for roughly 40% of European greenhouse gas emissions but consistently struggle to access transition finance.

4. Everyone working in their own silo

Across the BSR, energy strategies are still largely developed in isolation — by administrations alone, or by utilities on their own — with insufficient cooperation between public bodies, energy providers, and end users. Without shared platforms for local collaboration, even well-funded initiatives fail to connect.

5. EU ambition, local policy vacuum

The EU’s vision is clear, but national energy policies across the BSR remain overwhelmingly centralized, slowing the decentralization that a real local transition requires. Until circular roadmaps are embedded in formal municipal instruments — not just project deliverables — progress will stay fragile.

What EnergyCircle Is Actually Doing About It

The EnergyCircle project doesn’t pretend the barriers aren’t real. Instead, it works methodically against each of them. Currently in testing, its Methodology for Builder Competence Analysis will give BSOs and LPAs a structured way to assess their own capabilities and identify where to grow. The Methodology for the Energy Circle Roadmap — in development — will provide the long-term planning framework that has so far been missing at the local level. One-Stop-Energy-Shops are likewise being developed, with the goal of embedding circular energy roadmaps into municipal policy. These tools will be made available to partners and communities once testing is complete.

The approach mirrors what is already working right here in the region. MVeffizient — funded through the EU’s EFRE programme and running until 2027 — demonstrates what a functional BSO energy support model looks like in practice: free on-site consultations, a growing network of regional service providers through its Effizienznetzwerk, CO₂ accounting support via the ecocockpit tool, and regular industry roundtables that bring businesses together to share what’s working. From a family-run hotel replacing oil boilers with pellet heating, to an industrial manufacturer rerouting compressor waste heat to warm its production halls, the results are concrete and replicable. The lesson isn’t that planning replaces action — it’s that actions rarely succeed without local support.

“The future of cooperation lies in breaking silos, embracing creative partnerships across sectors, and connecting local to regional and national levels.” — Interreg BSR Programme Conference, Tampere, May 2025.

The “builders” are already there. They’re the chamber of commerce officer who knows every SME owner by name. The city planner who understands why a particular district keeps stalling on retrofits. The regional development agency that’s been trying to close the gap between EU funding and local capacity for years. What EnergyCircle offers them isn’t inspiration — they already have that. It offers tools, methodology, and a shared framework to make the work stick.

Energy independence for the Baltic Sea Region won’t arrive as a single dramatic moment. It will be assembled, piece by piece, by the people who show up every day at the local level. The question was never whether the vision was worth pursuing. It’s whether the builders have what they need to build.

Programme Manual Online

Choose