EnergaP mentoring in PROSPECT Learning Cycle 3
The Mentor ‘EnergaP - Energy Agency of Podravje (SI)’ and Mentees ‘Municipality of Koekelberg (BG)’ and ‘Municipality of Debrecen (HU)’ will participate in the 3rd Cycle of the PROSPECT Learning Programme, constituting the 4th Group for Public Lighting. The peer learning activities will be focalised on Energy Performance Contracting (EPC). +Mentors' Corner
During Step 1, an online session will take place, where Mentor representatives will present their experience in EPC.
During Step 2 of the Learning Programme, a second online session took place on the 4th & 5th of September, 2019, where Mentee representatives had the opportunity to present their own projects, pointing out their special needs as well as the respective sectors in which they intend to gain knowledge and experience.
The Mentees will visit Maribor in Slovenia to learn about best practices for EPC in Public Lighting
Step 3 includes the physical meeting, where representatives from all the participating cities and regions will have the chance to talk in detail about all the stages of their project and become more familiar with clean energy best practices via targeted site visits.
The agenda of the meeting included extensive and interesting presentations from the mentor representative Mrs V. Krmelj, as well as a site visit to EPC project locations.
Image: One of the 24 renovated public buildings in Maribor (primary school)
Image: Energy refurbishment of a building with the energy contracting system and using cohesion fund (Municipality of Radlje ob Dravi)
Replication/Transferability
The 4th and last step of the Programme took place on the 22nd of November 2019 and included an online session dedicated to the assessment and evaluation of the peer learning activities.
Detailed action plans were submitted by the mentees, in light of the new acquired knowledge gained from the mentor. Conditions for success and key parameters that could affect negatively the plans were also identified, along with a benchmark survey that encapsulated all the outcomes of the learning group.
Rethinking the financing scheme:
Main impressions and understanding about the financing scheme:
After the visit it was clear how complex to implement a project, and how important to calculate the investment cost, and calculate the savings based on reliable data.
on ELENA: interesting structure which helps public authorities in contracting financing schemes eg for energy saving projects
on EPC: interesting cooperation between public authorities and energy companies which provide energy savings and professional/specialised management of the energy resources of the public authority
Key project implementation drivers:
Energy agency has the knowledge to implement the project
On ELENA: professional help to public authorities, which don’t always have the knowledge/experience nor the resources for analysing, negotiating, contracting this type of loans, financing
On EPC allows energy savings and allows public authorities to focus on their core business rather than on problems related to energy.
Key project implementation barriers:
- Lack of capacity to prepare the projects
- ELENA: not open to small towns which often don’t have projects above 30 million euros
- EPC: energy companies are not always interested in working together with smaller towns, since their benefits can be too small
Key steps to set up or develop the financing scheme:
- Start to collect municipalities and start to establish an energy management system for local governments and start to collect energy data of them.
- ELENA: set up a collaboration with other towns. Find the right person to coordinate between the different towns
- EPC: finding an energy company which offers a good balance of quality service/affordable price and with whom the public authority can work together in full trust