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Newsletter #4 | October 2018
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New Energy Efficiency Directive - New target 32.5% for 2030
The European Commission wants to wake up the “sleeping giant” energy efficiency. A third of greenhouse gas emissions comes from buildings and similar to the mobility sector the potentials for reduction lag far behind. Energy efficiency in the European Union is expected to increase by 32.5% by 2030. This was agreed by negotiators from the European Parliament, the EU member states and the European Commission in June of this year. “This deal is a major push for Europe’s energy independence. Much of what we spend on imported fossil fuels will now be invested at home in more efficient buildings, industries and transport. The new target of 32.5% will boost our industrial competitiveness, create jobs, reduce energy bills, help tackle energy poverty and improve air quality.” said EU Climate Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete.
The EU states had demanded an increase in energy efficiency by 30%, the European Parliament wanted 35%. The new energy efficiency targets are designed to help meet the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement and prevent overheating of the earth. The agreement must be formally confirmed in the coming months by the parliament and the EU states. As soon as the new rules come into force, EU countries have one and a half years to transform them into national law.
More information
Energy Efficiency | Energy Union | Investment Plan for Europe: the Juncker Plan
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IPCC 1.5 °C Report
The special report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) with the laconic “1.5 °C” title demonstrates an important difference in the consequences of climate change between an increase of 2 °C and one of 1.5 °C in this century. The Paris agreement used in article 2 the formula “holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C”. The hope of being able to maintain the global temperature increase below two degrees during this century was already not very large in the climate experts community, to even limit it to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels means to reduce CO2 emissions by 45% by 2030, coming down to zero in the middle of the century. The report insists that the paths to limit global warming to 1.5 °C exist, but require a rapid and extensive transition in energy, soil, urban and infrastructure (transport and buildings included) and industrial systems.
The 1.5 °C ratio is another strong and unmistakable sign of the great importance of energy efficiency in buildings. The energy transformation by 2050 will only succeed if energy consumption is halved in absolute terms and energy consumption, especially the heat for air conditioning in the building is a key factor.
More information
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Local Joint Action Plan for Energy Efficiency in Public Buildings
At the heart of ENERJ there are the Joint Action Plans for Energy Efficiency in Public Buildings. To group together possible measures in order to render the “package” more interesting for ESCOs and financial institutes is an attractive idea. It is not new, Berlin has been doing this “bundling” of projects since the early Nineties of the last century, but joint actions continue to offer cultural, organizational, legal and financial challenges. In this period partners are elaborating their Local Joint Action Plans that will serve as a valid instrument to promote the aggregation of smaller projects into sizable packages and in mobilise the amount of finance needed.
The lead partner of ENERJ, Anatoliki, has elaborated a draft of their Joint Action Plan. On the basis of energy audits and cost analyses they are able to propose to three local governments a package of 14 buildings demonstrating costs and savings of a deep refurbishment and a less decisive one.
The second part of the Action Plan deals with the paramount question of the legal and organisational set-up. Anatoliki proposes several scenarios, among them a Programming Contract or the establishment of an energy community. The work is on-going and the second part of ENERJ will show the various options for Joint Actions and their applicability in the various territorial contexts.
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ENERJ in international events
Mid Term Conference of the Interreg MED PrioritEE project | Athens, June 21, 2018
ANATOLIKI, the Development Agency of Eastern Thessaloniki’s Local Authorities participated on June 21, 2018 in the conference transferring and disseminating project’s outputs. The presentation of Kostas Konstantinou focused on the concept of the Joint Action in the energy upgrade of public buildings as introduced by the ENERJ methodology. Furthermore, it elaborated on the local joint action case of Greece, where three Municipalities of the wider area of Thessaloniki are involved in the definition of a local join action plan and finally the outputs achieved so far were analysed. These outputs were related to the results of the energy audits and of the respective analysis performed in a bulk of 14 Municipal buildings of the three Municipalities that consist the case study for Greece.
International Climate Alliance Conference 2018 | Barcelona, October 1 - 3, 2018
ENERJ was presented in the Workshop “Energy transition in cities and regions” by Dr. Karl-Ludwig Schibel (Climate Alliance Italy), in occasion of the International Climate Alliance Conference 2018. The focus of the session was on implementing a local energy transition, tackling technological, financial and governance-related aspects. Dr. Schibel introduced by underlining the importance of energy efficiency for the energy transition and presented the project ENERJ as one of a series of Interreg Med projects that concentrate on energy efficiency in public buildings. He concretized the concept of joint actions with an activity of the partner Anatoliki that has worked with three local governments, Thermi, Pilea-Hortiatis and Thermaikos. On the basis of their SEAPs they did energy audits in the public buildings of these three towns, 14 buildings all together, and calculated the overall consumption gains, the respective costs, the average payback time be it overall, be it for every building. In the discussion Schibel underlined the potentials of a European project like ENERJ to render transparent for all the actors involved the possibility of Joint Action and its advantages in economic terms.
Efficient Buildings & Renewable Energy MED Community Conference | Lubljana, October 18-19 2018
The conference “Building our capacity of influence for an efficient, inclusive and renewable energy model for MED area” took place in Ljubljana (Slovenia) on October 18 and 19. It hosted partners of all Interreg MED Modular Projects from the two Thematic Communities: Efficient Buildings Community and Renewable Energy Community.
The projects are in the mid-term of their overall performance and the conference presented their on-going results to experts and strategic institutions. A dialogue of two days served to understand the specific challenges energy efficiency and renewable energy policies encounter in the MED area in an encounter between the projects of the two MED communities, representatives of the European Commission, the EIB, city networks and members of the Slovenian government.
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News from the related projects
Efficient Building Community
The booklet and the new video of the Efficient Buildings Community - the MED Community for more efficient public building animated by the MEDNICE horizontal project - are online.
Have a look and share!
Project FINERPOL
Communicating Energy Efficiency is a very hard job. It simply does not lend itself to catchy messages. The Interreg Europe project FINERPOL has produced an entertaining video that does an excellent job in this difficult field. Look for yourself.
Project Trust EPC South
Trust EPC South has come out with a very readable brochure on Energy Performance Contracting, with an overview of national EPC markets in Croatia, France, Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal and the results of their H2020 project which you can find here.
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Next events
This event is organised by the European Commission in partnership with the UN Environment Finance Initiative, the Ministry for Energy and Water Management of Malta and the Ministry of Transport, Infrastructure and Capital Projects of Malta. It is part of the Sustainable Energy Investment Forums, funded by the Horizon 2020 programme of the European Union.
The next UN Climate Change Conference (COP24) is an important milestone in the international debate. It was defined in the Paris Agreement as the occasion to take stock of the collective efforts towards the agreement’s long term goals 3 years after its adoption. This will also offer the occasion to demonstrate how regional and local authorities can contribute to the global efforts, while helping to increase national ambition.
The partners AREANATejo and CIMAA will host the 5th Project and Steering Committee meeting / Transnational meeting in Portugal. The partners will mainly discuss the progress that has been achieved on the definition of Local Joint Action Plan and the implementation of activities in the next phase of the project.
The 6th EU Energy Day will take place in Katowice, as part of the EU side events programme at the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP24.
It will showcase some of the initiatives launched to support a clean energy transition in the EU and beyond and advertise the progress already made towards delivering on the EU’s commitments, including with the 2030 targets and Clean Energy Package.
More information
For social media follow: #EUEnergyDay and @Energy4europe
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Partners consortium
ENERJ is supported by European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) under the Interreg MED Programme.
ENERJ (Joint Actions for Energy Efficiency) supports cities and towns in the implementation of energy efficiency actions in their own buildings as part of their local energy and climate policy.
It fosters the collaboration among local governments for Joint Actions. An ENERJ Platform facilitates designing Joint Actions and hosts a database on Local Energy Action Plans and Energy Efficiency measures.
ENERJ project is runnuing from November 2016 until April 2019 with a total budget of Euro 2.26 million. EU Funds Euro 1.92 million.
Lead partner: ANATOLIKI S.A. - Development Agency of Eastern Thessaloniki' Local Authorities
email: reacm@anatoliki.gr / tel. +30 231 0463930
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