Energy management competition for local authorities for uptake and enhance of Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans

Project Information

COMPETE4SECAP

Grant agreement ID: 754162

DOI

10.3030/754162

Project closed

EC signature date 25 September 2017

Start date 1 October 2017

End date 31 December 2020

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Secure, clean and efficient energy

Total cost

€ 1 781 483,75

EU contribution

€ 1 781 483,75

Coordinated by

EKODOMA
Latvia

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - COMPETE4SECAP (Energy management competition for local authorities for uptake and enhance of Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans)

Reporting period: 2019-04-01 to 2020-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

All over Europe, a good level of knowledge about SEAP development has been reached. There are different good quality methodologies and guidelines available. However, municipalities still struggle to implement these action plans, for a variety of reasons; one of the most important and tricky is municipal employees’ engagement. Indeed, often municipal employees are not motivated to take any sort of actions and initiatives, unless someone has actually “obliged” them to do so. In many cases, this lack of engagement and commitment ends up with investments in energy efficiency projects that do not deliver the expected technical and economic outcomes. Hence, the energy efficiency potential is not fully exploited and worse suboptimal investments are carried out without providing the expected yields. At the same time, LAs are more and more often facing the challenge posed by climate change and they need to understand the climate resilient of their infrastructure and possible climate adaptation measures. And the level of knowledge and understanding in this field is currently limited.

In the guidelines of the Covenant of Mayors, one of the key suggestions to have a successful SEAP is “Integrate the SEAP into day-to-day life and management of the municipality: it should not be just another nice document, but part of the corporate culture”. This statement is supported by the COMPETE4SECAP and is the basis of the project concept, which is articulated on three main integrated pillars: energy saving competition, EnMS and SECAP. The energy saving competition in public buildings motivates the employees to implement energy efficiency measures at their work. This interlinks with the implementation of EnMS at the LAs and ensures an active development and implementation of EnMS (not only a paper on the shelf). Thus promoting the integration of SECAP into day-to-day life and management of the LAs and reaching the energy saving targets.

One of the main challenges of COMPETE4SECAP is to ensure continuous availability of reliable data in local authorities through certification of energy management systems to make informed decisions to develop, finance and implement ambitious measures.

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

Compete4SECAP has ensured involvement of 31 LAs that developed and implemented Energy Management System according to ISO 50001 (except eea in Germany) and 20 of then have also certified the system (and additional three have passed the audit and are waiting for the certificate (2 for ISO 50001 and 1 for eea). Throughout the project Compete4SECAP has ensured all LAs with an access to Energy Monitoring Platform to ensure energy monitoring in public buildings, public lighting and public fleet. 16.8 million EUR investments have been allocated for implementation of 123 energy efficiency (EE) actions in the framework of the energy management system.

On January 1st, 2019 Compete4SECAP launched energy competitions in 97 public buildings (with more than 6800 employees and users) in eight countries with clear guidelines, awards, trainings, challenges and monthly newsletters. In total achieving 6.44% (1717.6 MWh) of energy savings and 176,433 EUR savings by avoiding 512.6 tons of CO2 emissions. Implementation of the energy management system and energy competitions has insured cost savings of more than 1 million EUR over the project lifetime.

Compete4SECAP has ensured that LAs also upgrade their existing SEAPs to SECAPs and plan new measures until 2030. The upgrade of SEAPs to SECAPs not only forced LAs to be more ambitious on EE and RES activities, but also included a very significant and newer field of action part for many LAs – climate adaptation activities. This required the LAs to be more aware of the risks of climate change on local level, and to plan corresponding actions that will help them to become more resilient. More than 700 sustainable energy actions (EE and renewable energy sources (RES)) have been foreseen within SECAPs (finalised and planned) with the total investments of 2.9 billion EUR.

By the end of the project, the C4S partners had carried out 400 dissemination activities, distributed a total amount of 8.742 flyers (or other promotional materials, such as stickers, sweets, handbooks, posters, door hangers, posters, handbags, indoor/outdoor thermometers, among others), and published 980 social media posts that registered 1.722 likes, 2 scientific publications, 74 articles and 25 press releases. The partners gave 53 presentations done in external (non C4S) events (conferences, etc.). The C4S website registered 35.648 views. The national newsletters were delivered to a total of 1.989 people, while 202 contacts (198 of them subscribers) received the EU newsletter. More than 3 million recipients have been reached.

The following achievements were reached:
● Total energy savings – 264.8 GWh/year
● CO2 emission savings from EnMS and energy saving competition – 5765.6 tons
● CO2 emission savings by 2030 from 29 SECAPs – 2.5 million tons
● Increase of RES capacity – 33.2 GWh/year

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)

Compete4SECAP has achieved following results:
• Compete4SECAP has involved 31 LAs to introduce, implement energy management system in their LAs, participate in energy competition and upgrade SEAP to SECAP. 20 have been certified according to ISO 50001:2018 during C4S timeframe, and three have passed the audit and are waiting for the certificate (2 for ISO 50001 and 1 for EEA).
• Compete4SECAP has involved 97 public buildings in one year energy competitions and in total achieving 6.44% (1717.6 MWh) of energy savings and 176,433 EUR savings by avoiding 512.6 tons of CO2 emissions.
• Compete4SECAP has ensured cost savings of 1.01 million EUR through implementation of energy efficiency measures within energy management system and energy competitions.
• Compete4SECAP has achieved total energy savings of 264.8 GWh/year, CO2 emission savings by 2030 of 2.5 million tons and increase of RES capacity – 33.2 GWh/year.
• Compete4SECAP has ensured 16.8 million EUR investments for implementation of 123 energy efficiency (EE) actions in the framework of energy management system.
• Compete4SECAP has ensured SEAP upgrade to SECAP 2030, including more than 700 sustainable energy actions with the total investments of 2.9 billion EUR.
• Compete4SECAP has engaged more than 185 additional LAs in project activities.
• Compete4SECAP has engaged more 672 energy stakeholders (i.e. maintenance companies, SMEs, NGOs, and ‘other’ organisations, e.g. (non-local) governmental or academic institutions) through different communication, dissemination and training activities.
• Compete4SECAP has reached more than 3 million recipients of the C4S dissemination and communication activities.
• Compete4SECAP has published 2 scientific publications.
• During the Compete4SECAP energy efficiency competitions 35 events (trainings, motivational workshops) were organized were theoretical and practical information was provided for more than 300 members of energy saving competition.
• The COMPETE4SECAP activities had a direct and indirect positive effect on the employment rate by initiating new workplaces. For instance, based on the successful outcomes of EnMS implementation, the energy manager position was permanently created in LAs from Latvia. Also, the EE, RES and climate adaptation actions included in the SECAPs will promote the creation of new workplaces in the LAs.

International peer-to-peer session with presentation of the Cyprus LAs on lessons learned

Speed dating between Italian and Hungarian municipalities during peer-to-peer session

Opening of the 2nd international peer-to-peer meeting with all target LAs in Bordeaux, France