Issue II / January 2011
One year of EnercitEE
EnercitEE has now been up and running for more than a year. Since the presentation of progress in the first newsletter, which was published in September 2010, EnercitEE has made a big step forward. After the initial important steps towards establishing a trusting partnership and a smooth collaboration, one key focus of EnercitEE is underway – the sub-projects.
In the middle of September 2010, the 1st Call for Proposals was closed. The coordination office received seven sub-project applications that all passed the eligibility test. That means that they fulfilled all the formal criteria and could, therefore, be passed on to the Component Managers responsible for performing the quality assessment.
The quality assessment is based on the criteria outlined in the EnercitEE manual. On the basis of the assessment of the Component Managers – the EnercitEE partners Haute-Savoie local authorities and ASTER from Emilia-Romagna – six sub-projects have been approved. They are described further down in the newsletter.
Following the Working and Steering Group meetings, study visits and training sessions have been organised to promote good practices from the regions and provide a platform for an interregional exchange of experiences. This exchange of experiences is a very important aspect of EnercitEE. The potential, the experience and the knowledge that exists in each region have to be shared and made available outside the partnership too. An initial step is taken by documenting the study visits and training sessions. The next step will be taken in April 2011, when we are going to run the first EnercitEE Component Seminar.
We are all required to distribute the primary results of EnercitEE as widely as possible through the website, press releases, regional newsletters, flyers, poster exhibitions etc. Any feedback, comments or other contributions are welcome. Please contact the EnercitEE coordination office at: enercitee.lfulg@smul.sachsen.de
I am looking forward to a successful year for EnercitEE in 2011 – a year full of challenges, exchange and moving forward. In the coming year, we have some very important milestones to overcome once again. Everybody is needed to contribute to the success of EnercitEE and its sub-projects, and finally to achieve a more sustainable way of life, for the sake of our environment and the future of the next generations.
Anja Barth, EnercitEE project coordinator
Approved EnercitEE sub-projects after the 1st Call for Proposals
It was possible to approve six sub-projects under conditions after the first Call for Proposals. These conditions are mainly concerned with the transferability, evaluation and interregional approach of the sub-projects. After the conditions have been fulfilled the Lead Sub-Project Participants got their go ahead.
All the interregional sub-project kick-off meetings will be organised at the beginning of 2011.
LEEAN: Local energy efficiency advice and networks
Lead Sub-Project Participant:
Saxon Energy Agency – SAENA GmbH (Saxony)
Sub-Project Participants:
Prioriterre (Haute-Savoie),
Regional Energy Agency of Crete (Crete),
ERVET Emilia-Romagna Regional Development Agency
(Emilia-Romagna),
Energy Agency for Southeast Sweden
(Smaland (Kalmar and Kronoberg)/Blekinge),
Municipality of Bielawa (Lower Silesia)
Overall budget: EUR 369.483,00
The proposal for LEEAN was submitted under the sub-project priority 1 ‘Strategies of EE knowledge transfer - local energy advice and networks’.
The overall objective of LEEAN is to support municipal staff, staff of (social) housing associations and local energy agencies in counselling private house owners, tenants, businesses, immigrants and families suffering from fuel poverty to cut energy costs, to behave in an energy efficient manner and to become acquainted with and adopt good EE practices. LEEAN concentrates on the building and housing sector which accounts for 40% of the total energy consumption in the EU.
The extraordinary interregional partnership with profound specialist expertise in the field of EE guarantees a broad variety of specific EE knowledge and instruments, as well as an intensive interregional exchange of know-how on existing approaches and instruments.
Finally, EE strategies and measures, especially in the building and housing sector, will be implemented better and more frequently, energy advisory services and networks will be strengthened and reinforced, and good practices successfully transferred.
Eventually, LEEAN will also have the opportunity to substantially support the development and optimization of regional and local policies.
SCC: The sustainable climate challenge
Lead Sub-Project Participant:
City of Växjö (Smaland (Kalmar and Kronoberg)/Blekinge)
Sub-Project Participants:
Prioriterre (Haute-Savoie),
Energy and Sustainable Development Agency of Modena (AESS) (Emilia-Romagna),
City of Meerane (Saxony)
Overall budget: EUR 174.000,00
The proposal for SCC was submitted under the sub-project priority 3 ‘Network strategies for EE citizens within local markets (EE stakeholders within local markets)’.
The Sustainable Climate Challenge (SCC) project aims to develop and use methods to involve citizens and inspire them to contribute to targets relating to energy efficiency, greenhouse gas emission and renewable energy - commonly known as the EU targets 20-20-20.
The project will challenge different groups of citizens to become more climate-smart with regard to their use of energy, transport and other fuel-consumption. By involving well-known persons known as "the Climate Idols" (with a personal interest in developing the city/region into a climate-smart city/region) in the challenge or the campaigns, SCC will hopefully make a greater impact on the selected group of citizens and also create more media interest.
The project will support the citizens with workshops and provide information on what to change and what kind of measure to adopt. Furthermore, SCC will provide opportunities for measuring the achievements. Specifically, the project will support all the citizens in their change of behaviour with workshops, seminars, meetings and action days and provide information via email, the Internet and flyers to help them to cut their CO2 emissions by 20% and their energy consumption by 20%.
The exchange of knowledge and experience is an essential part of SCC. A guideline on good practices will be produced. The results will be distributed within the participating regions, as well as to other European regions.
SUSTRAMM: Sustainable transports for managing mobility
Lead Sub-Project Participant:
Energy Agency for Southeast Sweden (Smaland (Kalmar and Kronoberg)/Blekinge)
Sub-Project Participants:
Municipality of Cluses (Haute-Savoie),
Technical University of Dresden (Saxony),
City of Pirna (Saxony)
Overall budget: EUR 141.344,13
The proposal for SUSTRAMM was submitted under the sub-project priority 6 ‘Strategies and plans for EE mobility & transport’.
SUSTRAMM addresses the dramatic environmental, social and economic consequences of our energy-hungry lifestyles by supporting local and regional authorities in reaching EU Energy and Climate Package targets within the sustainable transportation and Mobility Management (MM) fields.
SUSTRAMM aims at encouraging changes in attitudes and behaviour. SUSTRAMM will lead to a better exchange of experience within each region, as well as between the regions, as a result of reinforced networks of stakeholders and decision-makers on the topic of MM, for example. Key actors will be trained in MM to improve the understanding and inclusion of soft measures within transport strategies. The guidelines and recommendations on Mobility Management produced will have an impact on transport planning locally and regionally.
As a result, Mobility Management strategies and measures will be implemented better and more frequently and Mobility Management networks will be reinforced. The long term impact of SUSTRAMM is to reach more sustainable and energy efficient transport systems.
RIEEB: Regional impact with energy efficient buildings
Lead Sub-Project Participant:
Saxon Energy Agency – SAENA GmbH (Saxony)
Sub-Project Participants:
GodaHus (Smaland (Kalmar and Kronoberg)/Blekinge),
The Commune of Jelcz-Laskowice (Lower Silesia),
Council for architecture urbanism and environment of Haute-Savoie (Haute-Savoie)
Overall budget: EUR 240.376,00
The proposal for RIEEB was submitted under the sub-project priority 9 ‘Strategies to improve energy consumption in public buildings’.
The building sector spends 85% of this energy on heating and hot water. Therefore, a reduction of energy consumption and the use of energy from renewable sources in the building sector constitute important measures for reducing the European Union’s energy dependency and greenhouse gas emissions. It is necessary to determine more concrete measures to make use of the huge amount of unrealised potential for energy savings in buildings and to reduce the large differences between member states’ results in this sector.
Within RIEEB, external experts in the partner regions will review the national regulations on the energy efficiency of buildings in more than thirty buildings, including buildings of different categories. The climatic, architectural, technical and structural characteristics of each partner region will be considered.
The project will help to significantly increase the knowledge and awareness of energy efficiency in buildings among stakeholders in the partner regions. The experience gained during the project will be useful for practical implementation in their respective regions.
CLIPART - Climatic planning and reviewing tools for regions and local authorities
Lead Sub-Project Participant:
Regional environmental agency of Emilia-Romagna,
HydroMeteoClimate Service (Emilia-Romagna)
Sub-Project Participants:
Saxon Energy Agency – SAENA GmbH (Saxony),
Regional Energy Agency of Crete (Crete),
Air-APS (Haute-Savoie),
City of Jelenia Góra (Lower Silesia)
Overall budget: EUR 287.000,00
The proposal for CLIPART was submitted under the sub-project priority 10 ‘Regional climate policies for mitigation & adaptation - exchange between local authorities’ staff’.
The CLIPART sub-project aims at providing procedures and tools to support regional and local authorities in climate policy planning and implementation. Given the relevance and the urgency of the climatic issue, an overall regional or local GHG budget should be devised and set every year with sector assignments.
For that purpose, the project partners will exchange and share existing experiences that will be discussed and analyzed in order to produce a general methodology that could be directly followed and applied by European regions and municipalities to ensure effective climate change mitigation and adaptation.
The partnership will collect and analyse all the existing know-how on climate change and energy policies at their level of governance. On the basis of this existing knowledge and extensive internal discussions and confrontation with local authorities, staff and stakeholders, a general procedure for climate change planning and implementation will be set up and made broadly available.
PraTLA - Practical training in local authorities
Lead Sub-Project Participant:
Hochschule Zittau/Goerlitz – University of Applied Science
(Saxony)
Sub-Project Participants:
Energy Agency for Southeast Sweden
(Smaland (Kalmar and Kronoberg)/Blekinge),
Council for architecture urbanism and environment of Haute-Savoie (Haute-Savoie), Regional Energy Agency of Crete (Crete),
Karkonoska Agency for Regional Development (Lower Silesia)
Overall budget: EUR 269.446,00
The proposal for PraTLA was submitted under the sub-project priority 11 ‘Improving local energy policies - "job shadowing" in local authorities’.
PraTLA’s main objective is to improve local energy efficiency policy through practical training programmes in local authorities. PraTLA has identified two target groups for the sub-project:
1) local authority staff that need assistance and lack know-how relating to the development and implementation of local energy efficiency policy and
2) students and trainers as local energy experts who lack understanding of administrative structures and decision-making processes when energy efficiency solutions for local authorities are being prepared.
PraTLA will identify specific needs to improve energy efficiency in cities, to find suitable students or trainers as local energy experts and to organise targeted practical training programmes within local authorities, which provide benefits for both target groups. These practical training programmes will be thoroughly prepared in advance by matching the competencies of local energy experts (students/trainers) with the specific needs of the local energy policies.
The entire process is embedded in a constant interregional exchange of experience on didactic approaches in educational and training institutes, on the specific needs of local authorities in energy efficiency matters and the practical implementation and impact of the training programmes in five European regions with a different regional policy background.
Good practice from the EnercitEE regions
Passive houses in Saxony
Saxony has identified a large potential for CO2 reduction in the heat supply of buildings: passive houses consume around 15kWh/sqm/year which is at least 3-5 times less than low energy houses and 7-20 times less than existing buildings. Saxony started its first pilot project "Innovation and practice - network of passive houses" as early as 2002. Since then, the number of passive houses has increased significantly. Saxony provides financial support to the builders of passive houses and provides a lot of information on passive houses, including on-site visits.
Geothermal energy in Lower Silesia
There are many sources of geothermal water in Poland. The energy stored in them is equivalent to approximately 33 billion tonnes of crude oil. The use of this energy is feasible and can be cost-effective in 80-90% of the areas where such resources occur. The spa resort of Cieplice/Jelenia Gora in Lower Silesia is one of the few places in Poland where people have started to explore the potential of geothermal water – going beyond its use in medicine and recreation. Currently, the hot water is used to heat the spa facilities and the 'normal, non geothermal' water in the pools. The potential for district heating is currently being explored.
Biomass and solar thermal applications in Crete
Crete is an island that attracts each year millions of tourists. Some hotels have adapted an innovative approach for providing the hot water, in particular, in a more sustainable manner than just heating it electrically. The Atrion hotel in the middle of Heraklion, for example, uses two biomass boilers for producing hot water. They burn olive husks as a local biomass product. Another good example is the bigger luxury hotel Candia Maris. The hotel combines the use of a solar thermal system and a sea geothermal system. These systems are used for space heating, air conditioning/cooling, hot water for use and hot water for swimming pools, spa, etc.
The 2nd Call for Proposals
The 2nd Call for Proposals for EnercitEE sub-projects is currently open. Applications can be submitted to the coordination office until 4 March 2011. Up to six sub-projects can be approved in the second Call for Proposals.
A budget of around 935.000 EUR can be allocated for sub-projects. The recommended sub-project size ranges from 100.000 to 270.000 EUR.
The following sub-project priorities are open in the 2nd Call for Proposals:
SP 2 Awareness raising policies (EE competitions and games)
SP 4 Promotion & exchange of citizens’ good practice examples on EE
SP 5 Exchange of incentives and grant programmes for citizens
SP 7 EE training instruments for public authorities’ staff & knowledge
exchange
SP 8 Financing instruments as policies for local authorities
SP 12 New instruments for local energy planning and implementation
Before submitting an application, the documents provided in the application pack should be studied. The Terms of Reference and the EnercitEE Strategy Paper, in particular, have to be read carefully. Practical information on how to set up a sub-project application can be found in the handbook for SPP.
EnercitEE documents and publicity material
EnercitEE documents
Several EnercitEE documents have been updated:
The EnercitEE Communication Strategy stating useful publicity measures has been approved by the Steering Group and can be found on the website.
Publicity material
The 1st EnercitEE newsletter is also available in:
Leaflets on good practices
Furthermore, first brief documentations of good practices and background documents from the EnercitEE regions are published.
Upcoming events and deadlines
January - March 2011
Kick-off meetings of the EnercitEE sub-projects approved after the 1st Call for Proposals
4 March 2011
Closure of the 2nd Call for Proposals
5/6 April 2011
Working & Steering Group meeting for approval of 2nd Call sub-project proposals
7/8 April 2011
1st EnercitEE Component Seminar on Energy Efficient heat/power generation and distribution