Mayors, deputy mayors, energy managers, administrators responsible for strategic city development and representatives of local private companies got know the step by step process followed now by more than 2000 local authorities all around Europe, presented by Roman Doubrava, Administrator in DG Energy, European Commission.
When workshop started, the local authorities were mainly interested in funding opportunities at national and European level. As the workshop went on, most of the cities found out they are still at the very first stage – they do not have yet the appropriate administrative structures and human capacities in place.
There is still a lack of experienced and motivated energy managers or local energy agencies that would:
- be able to develop a long-term vision and a sound sustainable energy action plan for the cities,
- use existing innovative financial schemes and sources,
- exchange experiences with other cities
Isolated projects and actions mostly rely on available funding from the Structural Funds (which were identified as one of the barriers hindering local activity and disturbing the market) do contribute to energy savings but are not as powerful as they could be if they were part of an integrated long-term strategy.
Although the legislation obliged municipalities to develop their local energy strategies, these mainly concern the heat and electricity supply and do not provide an integrated approach to energy management – e.g. municipal buildings refurbishment, transport, public lighting etc.. Also, the strategies date back to the year 2005 when many of the EU directives, initiatives and financial instruments were not yet in place.
The barriers also vary depending on the size of a local authority – the smaller ones having not capacities to appoint an internal energy manager and develop an action plan. The advice from invited experts was to externalise these tasks to an energy agency or experts which would be shared by several smaller municipalities, thus sharing the costs and human resources. The relations between the regions and local authorities in their territories are often very weak and at this moment it is not imaginable for the cities to have the regions involved in the Covenant of Mayorsas Supporting Structures.
However, one of the participating cities turned out to be more advanced in local sustainable energy management, taking over other local authorities – city of Nitra. The city is one of the two Slovak cities that signed up to tthe he Covenant of Mayors. Local energy agency, created thanks to the funding from the Intelligent Energy Europe programmewith a great support from Energy Centre Bratislava, has a pragmatic and business orientated approach to the energy management. It has developed a Baseline CO2 Emissions Inventory and submitted the Sustainable Energy Action Plan within the one year from signing up to the Covenant and launches a communication campaign with citizens and local partners. The agency found the methodologic documents developed by the Covenant of Mayors Office and the Joint Research Centre very useful and is ready to help Slovak cities which wish to join this initiative. It is a proof that the change is coming and everything is feasible if the right and motivated people trigger this change. Hopefully, this example will motivate other cities to join the Covenant and follow this process.
The high participation of elected representatives, one month before the municipal elections and in spite of significant budget cuts, can be considered as a success in Slovakia. It seems that energy efficiency and renewable energy sources are gaining interest of local authorities and we can expect they will be a hot topic in the new 4 years election period. The local authorities will need to take some time to go through the step by step process the Covenant cities follow.
CITENERGO, the interest association of local authorities interested in local sustainable energy policies intends to play an important role in promoting the Covenant of Mayors in Slovakia and fighting for appropriate legislation, Structural Funds’ schemes’ setting and reinforcement of networking among local authorities and their cooperation with the regions.
The capacity building workshop was organised by Energy Cities (Covenant Supporting Structure), its collective member in Slovakia – CITENERGO (Union of Towns and Cities in Slovakia), the national expert – Energy Centre Bratislava, with the support of the European Commission within the ManagEnergy initiative.
Energy Cities will organise more capacity building workshops in 2011. The next to come - in January 2011 in Prague.
More info on all workshops organised within the ManagEnergy initiative, presentations and conclusions are available here.
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