Issue VII / June 2013

Editorial: EnercitEE seen from Brussels – Climate protection needs local action

“As delegate of the CoR Commission for Environment, Climate Change and Energy (ENVE), I am now and then approached by interest groups or regions that want to inform me about a certain issue or project. The event that was arranged by the EnercitEE project highlighted in an interesting and informative way a very important question for the committee and for me personally, namely possibilities to save energy and thereby the environment and tools to realize the potential of this. It was fascinating to see once again how cooperation between regions could breed such a number of ideas and concrete results. For me, regional and local cooperation is the key for success in the European project. EnercitEE is a very good example of that.", said Rolf Sällryd.

Policy making always starts at local level - and the European climate protection goals will only be reached if people change their daily life towards a more climate smart life style. Young energy experts from five European regions committed themselves to this objective. In order to document existing technical solutions, to collect field reports and experiences and offer guidance and counselling for citizens, the program EnercitEE was developed. The presentation of EnercitEE at the Commission for Environment, Climate Change and Energy (ENVE) as part of the Committee of the Regions (CoR) revealed impressively how the rather abstract European climate protections goals like increasing the share of renewable energies, the reduction of CO2-emissions and enhancing efficient energy consumption can be transferred into concrete local actions.

130 participants from all European regions acknowledged this with great interest. It strengthened their conviction that people all over Europe strive ambitiously and with innovative ideas to reach the joint climate protection targets. The participants will bring this experience and gained knowledge back home to their regions and thus campaign for additional commitment. In particular, the ENVE members Rolf Sällryd from Sweden and Heinz Lehmann from Germany were grateful and acknowledged that their home regions - the county of Kronoberg in Småland and Saxony were actively involved in EnercitEE and that results presented to the ENVE commission received that much interest. They appreciated EnercitEE´s imaginative and creative work on reaching the common goals. The professional and appealing presentations encouraged other CoR members to report about concrete projects from their regions in future meetings of the Commission for Environment, Climate Change and Energy. The Irish representatives already announced a presentation of practical examples from the local level in Ireland.

Heinz Lehmann and Rolf Sällryd,
Delegates of the Committee of the Regions

EnercitEE presents results at the Committee of the Regions in Brussels

EnercitEE hosted a quite special dissemination event at the Committee of the Regions (CoR) Building in Brussels: „Practical Approaches to more energy efficiency for European Cities and Citizens“ on 24 April 2013. The idea of such an event was to ensure that interested European, regional and local authorities/stakeholders get to know EnercitEE, its activities and achievements and take this knowledge back to their regions. Therefore the EnercitEE partnership organised a lunch reception in connection with a meeting of one of the CoR commissions – the Commission for Environment, Climate Change and Energy (ENVE).

The ENVE Commission allows for representatives from local and regional authorities to discuss the formulation of policies and to promote best practices in their fields of competence: Environment policy, climate change adaptation and mitigation; renewable energy, trans-European networks in the energy sector and new energy policies; and space policy. The ENVE commission cooperates with the European Commission, especially DG Environment, DG Climate Action, DG Energy.

The lunch reception offered EnercitEE and its project partners from Haute Savoie, Emilia- Romagna, Lower Silesia, Småland and Saxony the great possibility to give an overview of their personal commitments, ambitious tasks, challenges and outcomes of the project. Besides short statements from 5 European regions, the audience was provided with material, achievements and practical approaches from the project and the 11 sub-projects:

EnercitEE’s Good Practice Guide
Summaries of EnercitEE’s interregional symposia
Information on EnercitEE’s Policy Maker Exchange to Växjö
Outputs of EnercitEE’s sub-projects: the master manual for builders (LEEAN), a conception for energy saving competitions for schools (E-Foxes); guidelines on mobility management in rural areas and small cities (SustraMM); Energy Performance of Buildings Directive – implementation in 4 European Regions (RIEEB); Climate change planning for regional and local authorities (CLIPART), Contribution of students from 4 European countries to boost energy efficiency in communities (PraTLA).

More than 130 participants joint the reception and seized the opportunity to talk to EnercitEE partners about the project’s achievements. All in all it was a successful day for EnercitEE’s partnership spreading the great results and valuable outcomes reached by a European cooperation network.

The last 5 sub-projects of EnercitEE ended in May 2013 – final outputs now available

E-FoxES, FIPREC, ActEE, EEMTE and GRACE look back and forward. Please find out more about their final achievements and cooperation work and outcomes. All sub-project participants were eager to share their experience on energy efficiency measures and develop or test tools in their area of competence.

E-FoxES – Awareness raising projects in three European regions

Ute Zieschang, Bautzen Innovation Centre

The EnercitEE sub-project E-FoxES focused on raising awareness about energy saving among pupils in Saxony, Southeast Sweden and Haute-Savoie. The three sub-project partners developed a common conception of an energy saving contest between schools. Regional contests were established in all three sub-project regions. At the end of the project a European prize in three categories was awarded to the best projects.

Follow-up activities in the three involved regions:

Saxony: In the next E-FoxES contest in Bautzen the pupils will compare the total energy consumption of the school buildings.

Haute-Savoie: In future a new calculation tool will enable the schools to calculate the energy consumption and to give recommendations for energy saving.

Southeast Sweden: In future a teacher training concerning energy saving and field trips for pupils will be offered in collaboration with the local energy supplier.

FIPREC – Financing instruments for more energy efficiency

Marco Odaldi, C.I.S.A. Association

The final meeting of project FIPREC was held in Oława, Poland, April 10-12, 2013. The partners, CISA - Emilia-Romagna/Italy; SAENA - Saxony/Germany, District of Olawa - Lower Silesia/Poland examined the results of the project and acknowledged that the goals were in general satisfactorily reached. From single regions’ point of view, the Italian partner elaborated and promoted 2 contract models, and contributed to implement contracting for energy saving projects in 4 municipalities. Besides, among the consequence of better awareness of European opportunities and common goals, 12 municipalities were encouraged to join the Covenant of Mayors.

The German partner supported the largest ESC-project in Municipal Theater Chemnitz to get a Saxon funding for the installation of the new system technology at the theatre, playing a leading role in the project implementation, because of Know-How in the field of contracting measures. FIPREC is very important to spread the possibilities of an ESC in Saxony. Through the final information brochure and the last workshop, several interested parties will be more informed.

The Polish partner organized the final meeting, prepared a questionnaire and collected and developed the information necessary to the planned study of advisability of a bio-gas plant project in Oleśnica Mała. In general, existing and innovative financial models to contribute to solving applicative problems in public-private partnership and project financing for energy interventions have been presented and explained in various events involving +300 participants, +80 organizations, institutions and public bodies and +40 staff members. Contracting models, guidelines for local policies and best practices were implemented to show feasibility and convenience of such measures, to encourage wider implementation in the regions. Final brochures in the various languages were developed to inform about such measures and best practices.

ActEE - A European Communication Tool Package

Laurent Burget, Mountain Riders

In our three organisations, ARLEG in Poland, DAPT in Italy and Mountain Riders in France, we have different approaches of work, but similar goals. EnercitEE allowed us to combine our experiences to develop new tools concerning global networking and concrete local step-ups. We are proud about the joint development of a catalogue of 16 good practices for energy saving. The main output of our work is, with no doubt, the European Communication Tools Package. It gathers efficient tools, so everybody can find the appropriate tool for his energy saving needs and use it easily. More information is available here: http://www.mountain-riders.org/_actee/ECTP-Catalogue.pdf

Upgraded tools in our regions

ARLEG:
“The ActEE project allowed us to further develop useful educative tools and actions towards youngsters and adults, for example the happening ‘Energy Faces’ or short, funny movies about ecological habits. Over 10 institutions have been involved in spreading good practices of saving energy and there are others willing to join it. All the actions will be developed and implemented to sensitize the citizens and to upraise their awareness about ecology and climate issues.”

DAPT:
“The ActEE project has allowed us to develop two short video-animations on energy efficiency in households that show a list of ways to reduce energy consumption in existing buildings. The videos also link to a specific web site (http://www.abitareecosostenibile.it/). Also developed thanks to the project was more specific information on technologies and combinations that makes houses and buildings more energy efficient. The database will be growing, spread and be kept up-to-date with latest innovations also after the project’s end”.

Mountain Riders:
“The Energy efficiency program ActEE allowed us to further develop concrete actions toward hosts and shops in the mountains. 30 professionals have been involved. There is still a lot to do, but that was a great step in the right direction. The Montagne d’Eco Gestes for shops and for hosts campaign and the Eco Guide to Mountain Gear will be further developed and improved after the end of the project.”

Act for Energy Efficiency
The question of energy transition is now known as a crucial question we have to deal with if we want to find a sustainable solution for the ecological, social or economic needs of society. Answers are developed here and there, but no global output is foreseen. Innovation and networking are key issues in this regard. ActEE partners will keep their motivation and energy to build and Act for Energy Efficiency.

EEMTE – Training instruments and tools for more energy efficiency at local level

Carla Groß, City of Leipzig

The aim of EEMTE was the joint development and improvement of training instruments and tools for authorities and public administration staff. Methodologies and training instruments developed within the project have been promoted and made available to local stakeholders (public authorities of different levels), being an element of the exchange of experiences and good practices. Measures implemented under the project have been summarized in the EEMTE manual that will be available soon on EnercitEE website.

The partners of EEMTE have chosen different activities that complement each other and can be informative and inspirational to others. What we all have recognized: the success of all measures to improve knowledge in the public administrations about energy efficiency depends on the understanding and the will of local authorities, which are decision makers in the day-to-day routines. Activities in the field of energy efficiency must be promoted by the leaders and in some cases they should even be made mandatory (e.g. training sessions), otherwise people will not take part. Regarding the training tools (step by step guides for the users), it is necessary that they need to be developed in a way that makes them useful after the training sessions (otherwise the participants get all the information during training, but they lose it afterwards). In addition, the measures are to be adapted for each target group (e.g. volunteers at the Eco Event – Musiques en stock – have to be taught in a different way than the regular staff; e.g. in Leipzig the janitors and the staff of the building department).

Although EEMTE partners developed different tools in their region, they all had the same goal. We shared different experiences from the regions and tried to think of ways to transfer good practices: e.g. Eco event from Cluses could also be established in Jelcz Laskowice, Leipzig or Oskarshamn; e.g. the building monitoring system from the passive house school in Leipzig to Cluses, Jelcz-Laskowice and Oskarshamn; e.g. videos produced by Oskarshamn in English could also be used in Leipzig, Cluses and Jelcz-Laskowice; training concepts developed by the different partners could be exchanged.

However, the training concepts and developed manuals cannot just be translated, but have to be adapted to the local/regional situation (for example: the experts from Poland should go to France and learn about a good practice from the French expert; afterwards the French experts will go to Poland and help them with the regional implementation (but it requires time and money). For instance, representatives of Jelcz-Laskowice came to Oskarshamn for a study visits to study general strategies on energy efficiency (good practice shadowing, inspiration, exchange of the expert knowledge). One of the key results of the project is the intensive exchange of knowledge and information on the solutions to improve energy efficiency (energy-efficient buildings, using cost-effective renewable energy sources, the use of best legal and organizational solutions locally and regionally).

GRACE - Cost-benefit-analysis of funding programmes for citizens and communities

Marcel Bellmann, Bautzen Innovation Centre

The EnercitEE sub-project GRACE was carried out in Lower Silesia, Emilia-Romagna and Saxony. The sub-project focused on a cost-benefit-analysis of funding programmes in the three participating regions. All partners developed an overview on available funding programmes in their regions. These programmes were compared among the partners to find out similarities and differences. Three funding programmes per region were selected for a detailed cost-benefit-analysis following a joint-developed methodology. The main results are the specific amounts of saved energy and reduced CO2-emissions caused by governmental funding.

All results are laid down in regional evaluation reports. The reports introduce the participating regions, e.g. the socio-economic and the energy background. Each region is characterized by a SWOT-analysis. The analysed funding programmes and the cost-benefit-analysis are explained in detail. The last chapter contains policy recommendations for regional, national and European policy makers.

In Saxony the following funding programmes were analysed:

Saxon passive house programme,
Exchange of the central heating boilers,
Installation of solar thermal plants,
Exchange of the interior and street lights

The exchange of the interior and street lights was the only funding programme that was used by municipalities. The main results are shown in the chart and table below. Please have a more detailed view of the results in the regional evaluation report.

All in all the funding programmes fulfil their purpose of supporting the way to become more energy efficient until 2020.