Although many of Europe’s Alpine communities have adopted Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans (SECAPs), they face problems in their implementation. The PEACE_Alps project tackles the issue by taking an inter-municipal approach.
- 22 February 2019
Alpine communities face the same type of issues regardless of the country they are in. Therefore, we should look for solutions and share them with each other. All the solutions tested in the PEACE_Alps project are widely replicable in the entire Alpine region, helping the area transition to a low carbon economy.
To mitigate the effects of climate change, a number of Alpine communities have taken various local actions aimed at reducing carbon emissions. Although such initiatives have stimulated climate action planning, moving from the planning stage to implementation has proved challenging. This is mainly the result of a lack of technical expertise within the individual communities and the fact that such actions need economies of scale to be effective.
The PEACE¬_Alps project aims to remedy this knowledge gap by bundling local needs and setting up centralised solutions to help all communities successfully transition to a low carbon economy. The resulting one-stop shop of technical assistance services and solutions is already supporting over 200 municipalities to develop concrete low carbon and climate adaptation actions.
Starting local
The project is rooted in the understanding that when it comes to implementing SECAPs, local authorities face similar problems and limitations. The PEACE_Alps technical assistance services are therefore provided free of charge to small and medium-sized municipalities looking to better manage their energy use, refurbish public buildings, modernise streetlights and adapt to climate change.
The project takes a bottom-up approach. To identify local needs and opportunities, the project started by interviewing over 200 local policy makers, civil servants and stakeholders from across the regions involved. The project then consolidated this information to inform centralised solutions that could easily be adapted to local needs.
Although the project is still in progress, it has already successfully collected, analysed and benchmarked data on more than 500 buildings and 12 500 streetlights. By the time the project closes at the end of 2018, coordinators expect that specific actions will have been taken towards making these buildings and lights more energy efficient.
A centralised approach
The ultimate goal of the project’s centralised approach is to help the all the communities involved achieve a low carbon Alpine area, and to provide policy instruments for adaptation to climate change. Through the resulting increase in energy efficiency and use of renewable energy sources, the PEACE_Alps project is also helping reduce the region’s dependency on foreign energy sources. By scaling up existing solutions and supporting the implementation of local actions, greenhouse gas emissions will be reduced and new jobs created.
Furthermore, over 20 regional public authorities and sectoral agencies are set to directly benefit from the knowledge transfer developed by the project, which coordinators say will triple the project’s impact in the future. Because of its large impact, the project was named the best public sector initiative during the 2018 European Sustainable Energy Week (EUSEW).
Total investment and EU funding
Total investment for the project “Pooling Energy Action Plans and Enhancing their Implementation in the Alps” is EUR 1 938 899, with the EU’s European Regional Development Fund contributing EUR 1 648 064 through the “Alpine Space” Operational Programme for the 2014-2020 programming period. The investment falls under the priority “Energy Union and Climate”.