Facilitating Multi-level governance for energy efficiency

Project Information

multEE

Grant agreement ID: 649829

DOI

10.3030/649829

Project closed

EC signature date 5 February 2015

Start date 1 March 2015

End date 31 August 2017

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Secure, clean and efficient energy

Total cost

€ 1 981 743,75

EU contribution

€ 1 981 743,75

Coordinated by

DEUTSCHE GESELLSCHAFT FUR INTERNATIONALE ZUSAMMENARBEIT (GIZ) GMBH
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - multEE (Facilitating Multi-level governance for energy efficiency)

Reporting period: 2016-09-01 to 2017-08-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The aim of multEE was to improve the consistency and quality of energy efficiency policy planning and implementation through innovative monitoring and verification schemes, as well as through improved coordination between different administrative levels.

Public authorities play a key role in the reduction of EU energy consumption. Member States as well as Signatories of the Energy Community Treaty in Southeastern and Eastern Europe must produce and implement National Energy Efficiency Action Plans (NEEAPs) as well as detailed action plans in specific sectors such as the renovation of buildings or the application of high-efficiency cogeneration and efficient district heating and cooling systems. Local and regional authorities are also developing plans at their own level and other public authorities play an important role, too. Whereas some Member States have a longer tradition in planning and implementing energy efficiency measures and built up the necessary capacities and developed technical tools others are still in the initial stages and are facing numerous difficulties.

The following key issues were tackled within the framework of this project:

A lack of reliable data on energy efficiency measures and their results:
Monitoring systems, based predominantly on energy statistics instead of bottom-up data from implemented projects, do not provide a clear overview of energy efficiency measures implemented at different administrative levels and on their effectiveness and cost efficiency. The innovative and easy to use Monitoring & Verification systems developed through multEE empowers national governments, municipalities and regional actors to collect data and follow-up on energy efficiency measures implemented in their jurisdiction, streamlining the process and freeing up capacities for other activities. Capacity-building for introducing and using the system was provided by the project.

Multi-level governance of energy efficiency to be improved:
The horizontal and vertical integration of energy efficiency policy between different governmental levels remains an issue in many European countries. Energy efficiency plans on the municipal, regional and national level are often not sufficiently harmonised and sometimes pursue divergent goals. Better vertical and horizontal coordination mechanisms can help energy policy planners to better align the activities on different levels, design more effective and efficient support schemes based on improved understanding of local conditions and needs and thus keep up with the national saving targets.

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

The project was working along two pillars: One focusing on Monitoring & Evaluation Schemes and the other one on Coordination Mechanisms with a situation analysis upfront.

The mapping and analysis of good practices for Monitoring and Verification Schemes and Coordination Mechanismsincluded 1) the development of an analytical Framework for the mapping of existing M&V schemes and coordination mechanisms, 2) a mapping of existing M&V schemes and coordination mechanisms in the EU 28 + FYR of Macedonia and 3) a more detailed analysis of good practices identified in the mapping exercise.

The first pillar on improving Monitoring and Verficiation schemes included 1) the development of new and compilation of existing measures for calculation of energy savings from individual measures (bottom-up). From this compilation of bottom-up measures those countries willing to introduce the IT tool had to select a list of measures to be applied for their country and identify corresponding reference values. Based on the catalogue of bottom-up measures a proto-IT platform has been programmed which has been localised and adapted to the needs of each participating Country and handed over to the designated institutions in Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and FYR of Macedonia which were prepared to introduced the system within their country. Capacity building was provided through regional Training of Trainers as well a national trainings for future users. In Austria and Croatia that already possessed an existing system a focus was laid on incremental upgrades and capacity building.

In the second pillar on Coordination Mechanims based on the results from the anaylsis of good European practices existing gaps have been identified and analysed in all partner countries. Concrete proposals for improving multi-Level governance coordination have been thus been developed and discussed in national workshops with key stakeholders.

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)

MultEE’s impact is visible along several lines:

Improved capacities of public officers
multEE directly affected those officials who do and will work and get involved with the M&V schemes developed for partner countries which amounted to 497 who have been reached through trainings, workshops and other events.
In the Events related to improving Coordination Mechanisms in total 263 officers have been reached of which 171 already participating in events related to WP 2. Thus a total of 589 officers have been influenced in total through this project.

Improved policies and plans
multEE's deliberate aim was to target all levels of administration and the range of energy efficiency and sustainable energy plans attached to them. During the implementation period an impact on a total of 168 plan on national, regional and local Level could have been observed.
However, since the implementation of the IT-tool hadjust begun from the end of 2016 onwards, an even broader impact is most likely to be seen in the next planning period estimated to affect up to 245 plans in the long run.

Energy Savings triggered by the project
Since energy savings in projects focusing on the policy level can usually not be measured directly a specific methodology has been developed and presented in the DoA to estimate the savings triggered by the project through improved multi-level governance which has been further specified in the final Report. According to this methodology a total of 864 GWh of savings can be attributed to the multEE Project.

EED and ESD implementation
multEE had an important impact on improving the quality of Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) and Energy Services Directive (ESD - for the Energy Community Countries) implementation with regard to monitoring and reporting achieved energy savings. Since the IT tool is not only recording and calculating energy savings but also CO2 savings the IT tool developed by multEE is also well suited to facilitate the implementation of the new governance framework proposed as part of the Winter Package which foresees a closer aligment of energy Efficiency and climate policy .

Better public spending and more evidence-based policy making
In the long-term through the evaluation of bottom-up data from the Monitoring and Verification Platform scares public resources can be saved by basing future energy efficiency programmes on most cost-efficient measures with the highest savings. Energy efficiency policy can thus be formulated more evidenced-based using data from the IT tool.

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Project Team + Advisory Board