Institutionalized Integrated Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans

Project Information

2ISECAP

Grant agreement ID: 101033752

DOI

10.3030/101033752

Project closed

EC signature date 11 May 2021

Start date 1 September 2021

End date 31 December 2024

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Secure, clean and efficient energy

Total cost

€ 1 499 662,50

EU contribution

€ 1 499 662,50

Coordinated by

ETAIREIA DIOIKISEOS EPICHEIRISEON KAI ERGON AE
Greece

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - 2ISECAP (Institutionalized Integrated Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans)

Reporting period: 2023-03-01 to 2024-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Planning for energy transition is an interdisciplinary issue that requires the integration of the energy theme into the everyday work of public administration. Doing so not only begs an integrated approach, but also a participatory and multilevel governing process. Tensions between interests and stakeholders often rise without an adequate resolution strategy. These tensions may hinder the transition once plans and policies become concrete in action plans, projects, and implementation. Such tensions manifest themselves as social conflicts and in failures to implement plans and policies.
Effective and efficient planning for the energy transition, thus, can greatly benefit from allowing an open and creative process of confronting formal decision-making with the places, stakeholders and communities they aim to affect or activate. communities.
The creation of an institutional environment (i.e. a governance structure) that can combine the democratic legitimacy and legal power of formal plans and policies with the creativity, energy and social capacity of (bottom-up) initiatives, entrepreneurship and community involvement will definitely add great value to the energy transition and ensure its success.
In such context, the project aims at:
- Introducing a Holistic Approach to Sustainable Energy Climate Action Plan (SECAP) Planning that will support Participatory and Integrated sustainable energy and climate actions planning
- Studying, enhancing the understanding and identifying critical success and failure factors regarding the effective mobilization of citizens and stakeholders
- Designing the Governance Structure required to establish the holistic (participatory and integrated) approach
- Providinge proof on the proposed Integrated SECAP planning approach by applying it to the following six European Municipalities: Karditsa (GR), Thun (SW), Tartu (ES), Ljutomer (SL), Leon (ES), and Padova (IT).

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

2ISECAP project, within its first half period, has developed all the analysis required in order to: (a) study the capacity of formal plans and policies to activate and work with local energy initiatives and coalitions for implementing proposed actions in the various municipalities considered, (b) perform an international comparative study of best practices and ongoing work on participatory and integrated sustainable energy planning on a local level, (c) analyze local and regional community initiatives and larger societal coalitions focused on energy transition and climate actions, in order to identify how they came to be, function and perform, their existing relations with formal governments, formal plans and policies, and how these relations affect the barriers and accommodation factors for their scale-up, (d) examine the development of institutional capacity (i.e. organizational, knowledge, instruments, leadership skills) within local/regional government and its relationship with social capacity (i.e. networks and assets that facilitate citizen awareness, private sector involvement and cooperation for mutual benefit), (e) identify institutional capacity measures, including governance structures and tools to be considered and provided by local/regional governments to support energy and climate bottom-up initiatives and coalitions and (f) study the suitability of existing urban management approaches and spatial planning tools for introducing/facilitating sustainability and energy transition, in different area-based characteristics and in adapted ways to specific local needs, socio-economic conditions and environmental constraints.
Based on this analysis the project is currently working on the development of the Holistic Approach to SECAP Planning that roots SECAPs in the specificity of local and regional spatial and socio-economic conditions, enhancing its links with spatial planning in every local society. This approach is based on a multi-level, interdisciplinary co-creation process, supported on a local level as a new planning framework to foster integrated local action.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The project developed and applied a Holistic Energy Planning approach through the LL concept. Six ISECAP LLs were established and six SECAPs have been developed and endorsed by the six municipalities involved in the project, i.e. revision of the SECAP of Karditsa and Leon that will be resubmitted to the CoM, the SECAP of Ljutomer that submitted to the CoM during the first week of March, the CCC Plan of Padova that has been submitted to the Mission Board, the Municipal Energy Plan of Thun for climate neutrality by 2050 and the roadmap on circular economy of the Tartu Municipality. An evaluation methodology was developed and applied to assess the performance of the approach and of the plans developed, with very encouraging results.

Moreover, the project defined and the Local Energy Coalitions (LECs), i.e. bottom-up initiatives of different actors that join forces aiming to support specific energy projects or initiatives. A Transnational Living Lab on Local Energy Transition has been developed within the project that has already 38 signatories outside the consortium (i.e. mostly municipalities). The objective of this initiative is to support municipalities to achieve the energy transition.

Dissemination and awareness activities at different territorial levels play an important role to maximize 2ISECAP project impacts. Such activities involve the Transnational Living Lab workshops held in Turin on September 2022, Valladolid May 2023 and Barcelona 2023 and an international event in Timisoara on September 2024 and the Living Labs instituted within the six selected European Municipalities (Karditsa (GR), Thun (SW), Tartu (ES), Ljutomer (SL), Leon (ES), and Padova (IT)). In the framework of national roadshows aiming to raise awareness on the project, a total of 29 events were held across 8 countries with more than 10,000 participants, bringing together diverse stakeholders (citizens, representatives from municipalities or other public organizations, energy agencies, researchers, urban and regional planners, innovators, energy providers and distributors, policymakers, companies and entrepreneurs, academics, students, development organisations, financiers, spatial planners, representatives from consulting firms, service providers, national organizations, etc.) to share knowledge, discuss innovative strategies, and collaborate on sustainable development solutions. These events provided a valuable platform for fostering international cooperation and advancing the goals of the 2ISECAP project.


Links to projects:
Cost Action SHiFT: https://www.cost.eu/actions/CA21166/
Interreg ReS_EAU: https://interreg-maritime.eu/web/reseau
SIU Conference: https://www.societaurbanisti.it/conferences/transizioni-giustizia-spaziale-e-progetto-di-territorio/

Potential impacts of LECs on local energy transition

“Core LECs” and “Starting LECs” grouped by legal form and categories of barriers they identified

“Core LECs” and “Starting LECs” grouped by legal form and categories of drivers they identified