Website: www.european-energy-award.org

Case Study (45 KB PDF)

Presented at: European Conference on Local Energy Action: Optimising local action to drive sustainable energy and transport in the Europe of Twenty-Five
20-21 October 2004, Brussels, Belgium

Therese Glasmacher, Beratungs- und Service-Gesellschaft Umwelt mbH, Germany

Slides (322 KB PDF) | Proceedings and Recordings

Summary

The European Energy Award® (eea®) is a European certification and quality management system which rewards cities and towns with a label for outstanding efforts in the field of energy efficiency and the use of renewable energies.

It consists of three main elements:

• Establishment of a total quality management system (TQM) for communal energy-related activities
• Certification and award for energy-related achievements in two award categories and control of success through regular audits
• Establishment of a network within the community and between communities through increased co-operation and communication

The European Energy Award is a qualified instrument for steering and controlling communal energy policy in order to review systematically all energy-related activities to date, identify strengths, weaknesses and potential for improvement and, above all, implement effectively energy efficient measures. These successful efforts made in the communal energy policy are presented to public through a European assessment and award. The standardised assessment permits a benchmarking among the eea® communities. Access to the know-how and experiences of leading energy cities throughout Europe is obtained.

The eea® is based on experiences with forerunner national certification systems carried out in Switzerland and Austria for almost 8 years (Energiestadt Schweiz, e5 programme). It was developed within the 5th EU Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development and has been successfully implemented in several communities in Switzerland, Austria and Germany since 2002. With support of SAVE II these active regions were now enlarged by Basque region/Spain, Ireland, Liguria/Italy, Lithuania and Slovakia in order to disseminate the certification and management approach for energy efficient communities throughout Europe.

Results

The total energy savings stimulated by the project within the next 2-3 years is estimated as 196.000 MWh and the cost savings as 3,92 Mio. EURO.

The implementation of the certification scheme up to now has shown that the following benefits can be achieved:

• Increase of implementation of energy saving measures on local level and of speed to implement projects

Consequently, the communal budgets have been freeing up by reducing energy costs and investments have been done strengthening local markets.

• Energy as an issue has been integrated into the cities marketing activities ("eea city")
• Improvement of the local and regional added value
• Creation of attractive and modern working fields and thus jobs

It is expected that about 66 jobs will be created or maintained in the field of accredited eea adviser, accredited eea auditor and regional eea programme managers.

• Due to the administrative and process-orientated arrangements within the community, "impossible" projects are more likely to be realised
• The co-operation between municipal departments, public services, etc. has been improved significantly
• The integration of the citizens into the certification procedure (e.g. in the framework of Local Agenda 21) has improved the image of the public institutions and increased public awareness
• The awarding ceremony has increased public awareness