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Full project name in English language

Raising capacity of cross-border public institutions in sustainable energy planning and management and climate change mitigation

Acronym and project ID

SEPlaM-CC (HUHR/1901/3.1.1/0048)

Total budget

176.075,35 EUR (149.664,04 EUR – EU contribution)

Project duration

01/07/2020 – 28/02/2022

Background and summary of the project

The European Union is fighting the battle against climate change, while public institutions play an important role in overcoming the challenges posed by climate change, but also in achieving EU energy and climate goals, which makes them leading actors in implementing local energy sustainable policies. With more than half of greenhouse gas emissions generated in cities, the Covenant of Mayors initiative and later the Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy were developed to support local governments in implementing energy policies with the focus on climate change mitigation and fossil fuel consumption. The signatories of the Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy are obliged to develop and adopt Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans (SECAPs). SECAP is a strategic document in which, based on the current state of energy consumption, energy efficiency measures which will result in a reduction of CO2 emissions by at least 40% by 2030 are defined.
Nevertheless, growing evidence suggests that the development of strategic documents at the local and regional level is not being carried out effectively, which means that there is a lack of capacity and will for sustainable energy planning and climate change mitigation as well as for the implementation of energy efficiency measures defined in such documents. Thus, only 5 SECAPs have been developed in Croatia so far, and 2 in Hungary, which is disappointing. This is what led the project partners to develop this project idea whose main goal is to increase capacity in the cross-border public sector through cooperation and exchange of knowledge, experience and best practices in the field of sustainable energy planning and climate change mitigation and also to encourage planning and implementation of energy efficiency measures and the use of renewable energy sources in the public and private sectors.

Beneficiaries

Medjimurje Energy Agency Ltd. (CRO)
Zala County Foundation for Enterprise Promotion (HU)

Objectives

Identification of financial opportunities and results in the cross-border area
Analysis of existing strategic and planning documents related to energy and climate together with energy and climate management modes
Development of a common methodology for strategic planning
Development of Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans
Capacity building and improvement of cross-border cooperation through the organization of cross-border information and networking events

Activities

1 – Project administration and management
2 – Information and publicity
3 – State-of-art analysis of the present practices of sustainable energy planning
4 – Methodology on strategic planning and development of Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans
5 – Capacity raising and enhancement of cross border cooperation

Target groups

TG1 – Local and regional authorities
TG2 – Sectoral agencies
TG3 – Public institutions
TG4 – NGOs
TG5 – SMEs
TG6 – General public

Project results

Development of common cross-border methodology on strategic planning – 1
Development of joint analysis of strategic documents – 1
Development of a joint analysis of best practice examples – 1
Development of bilingual guidelines for local and regional government– 1
Development of Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans – 2
Organization: 2 starting conferences, 2 final conferences, 4 project partner meetings, 2 networking events, 2 information events – 12
More than 40 participants in project events

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