Dear Reader!

You are very welcome to read the second MESHARTILITY newsletter, which provides an

update on the activities and outcomes of this interesting project.

MESHARTILITY project (Measure and share data with utilities for the Covenant of

Mayors) is the first IEE co-funded project that addresses data challenges faced by local

governments when compiling their GHG inventories and Sustainable Energy Action

Plans. The project aims at the development of solutions and tools facilitating

exchange of energy data between energy utilities and local authorities who are

signatories of the Covenant of Mayors.

We hope you will find it pleasant and inspiring to read about the conclusions of the 2nd

European roundtable discussion, the local energy forums organized in all partner

countries and good practices on data sharing, SEAP implementation and organization of

Energy Days developed by organisations and municipalities participating in the project.

If this information is of interest to your colleagues, partners, municipalities and energy

utilities, as well as community stakeholders, they can register for the newsletter online at:

www.meshartility.eu/en/.

Issues of the newsletter in other European languages are currently being prepared and

will be available in different language versions of the MESHARTILITY website soon.

With kind regards, full of good energy

MESHARTILITY project team

About MESHARTILITY

The MESHARTILITY (Measure and share

data with utilities for the Covenant of Mayors)

project aims at the development of solutions

and tools facilitating exchange of energy

data between energy utilities and local

authorities busy developing their emission

inventories and Sustainable Energy Action

Plans (SEAPs).

For this, municipalities require data in the

appropriate format aggregated by sector,

yet disaggregated enough to also understand

user groups energy behavior. This data

comes from multiple data sources relevant to

energy (electricity, heating and transport),

and is mostly collected by utilities that offer

energy services. Yet, they are not always

willing to share them for different reasons.

The MESHARTILITY project addresses

these challenges by exploring legal

frameworks and current status of cooperation

between LAs and energy utilities in 12

countries, by creating a systematic

cooperation scheme between both parties,

by sharing recommendations with EU and

national decision makers and by supporting

pilot municipalities in the development of

high-quality SEAPs based on real, bottom-up

data. You will learn more about our up-to-

date results from the next articles published

in this newsletter!

Whats new in the project?

A lot has happened in the project in the last

months. The most interesting activities and

results are presented below.

2nd EU roundtable concludes

discussions on energy data

sharing

The second European roundtable under the

MESHARTILITY project was held on the 10th

of March 2015 at the Committee of the

Regions in Brussels, almost 2 years after the

first one organised on the 23rd of May 2013.

It was the last meeting in a series of

European and national roundtables in the

project work program and gathered 20

participants: technical experts from energy

utilities, associations of municipalities and

Supporting Structures from 12 European

countries engaged in the project, as well as

representatives of such EC institutions as

DG TREN, JRC and the Covenant of Mayors

Office.

At the beginning of the meeting each

participant introduced himself and his

experience and expectations related to

energy data sharing in order to illustrate

different perspectives to a common problem.

Then the results of energy baseline

assessments and lessons learnt, based on

the summary report of BEI and surveys of

partners and involved municipalities, were

Access to local energy data

2nd newsletter of the MESHARTILITY project

There are two main benefits of local energy

forums. Firstly, the long term strategy of

municipal sustainable development included

in the SEAP is well-fitted to the local context

and secondly forums ensure citizens and

stakeholders support and approval to the

document.

Stakeholders should represent various

interest groups: policy makers, different

municipal departments, energy utilities,

businesses, NGOs, housing associations,

educational centers, media, etc. Thanks to

that, various points of view can be taken into

consideration. Invitation to the forum should

come from the Mayor, which raises the

status of the event. To achieve success it is

essential to ensure good organization,

selection of interesting and current topics,

effective moderators and commitment of the

highest authorities.

All energy forums organized within the

MESHARTILITY project were an opportunity

to listen to inspiring presentations, learn

about the energy policy of local authorities,

assess planned actions and determine the

directions of further cooperation between

local self-governments and local

stakeholders. From April 2012 to April 2015

94 events took place in 10 countries (Malta

3, Spain 9, Cyprus 4, Latvia 5, Croatia 13,

Bulgaria 5, Italy 37, Slovenia 5, Romania 8,

Poland 5).

12 project partners, as well as local

authorities, were satisfied with the

attendance and activity of stakeholders and

their great commitment to the SEAP process.

All partners agreed that the energy forums

were an ideal tool to bring together all the

major groups of interest, who emphasized

the importance of many issues, helped to set

up achievable goals and find satisfying

solutions to the most urgent problems.

Municipalities share opinions

about the CoM initiative and the

SEAP process

In the framework of the MESHARTILITY 75

municipalities across the EU joined the

Covenant of Mayors (CoM) initiative. In order

to assess their level of satisfaction and

lessons learnt throughout the whole SEAP

development and implementation process, a

survey was conducted in 11 partner areas.

Municipalities were interviewed by project

partners from December 2014 till March 2015.

In general municipalities appreciate the

possibilities and opportunities provided by

the CoM and the MESHARTILITY project,

including expert support in the process of

setting targets, gathering data, selection of

priority measures, etc. Some of them were

already familiar with the CoM initiative and

involved in some sustainable energy actions

before. Still, they benefited from joining the

project and the initiative itself. Very few

reservations were made, however these

were carefully analyzed.

Regarding the SEAP process, in the survey

40% of the municipalities pointed out that the

most challenging step has been and still is

the implementation of the SEAP actions.

Gathering the energy data for baseline

emission inventory was identified as the

second most difficult phase.

presented as well as the role of regional data

centres.

The core of the roundtable was the

presentation and extensive discussion of

improving the collection of data. Particularly

the best practice examples for central data

collection by voluntary agreement in Latvia

and for new data sharing mechanism

provided by ENEL Distribuzione S.p.A. in

Italy were very well received.

The discussion on the policy

recommendations for the EU and national

institutions in the form of workshop led the

participants to a conclusion that these

recommendations should be widely spread

among national and European stakeholders

and policy makers. Reservations were

expressed regarding the practicality of

introducing central data collection through

legislation, particularly at the EU-wide level,

and the messiness of signing individual

bilateral agreements between energy

suppliers and local authorities.

Summing up, the MESHARTILITY project

gathered a range of different examples and

managed to smooth the way for better

energy planning and Sustainable Energy

Action Plans monitoring. In 2016 the Energy

Efficiency Directive will be reviewed and we

hope that following MESHARTILITY

recommendations it will influence policy

makers to form a law obligating to provide

the energy consumption data in an

appropriate format.

Local energy forums in partner

countries help to involve citizens

Successful energy policy requires not only

setting specific targets, performing analysis

and selecting most appropriate actions, but

also engagement of main local stakeholders,

whose interests are affected by the

development and implementation of a

Sustainable Energy Action Plan (SEAP) or

whose activities can support achievement of

its goals. Stakeholders can be reached by

many type of actions, including broad

information campaigns, energy days or

energy forums.

The main objective of the energy forums is to

involve the citizens and other stakeholders in

the SEAP process. They can present ideas

on improving the energy situation of the city,

their expectations in this area and the

possibility of their engagement in the

achievement of local energy targets.

Linking to the ENEL Distribuzione S.p.A.

data sharing platform: http://

eneldistribuzione.enel.it/it-IT/paes about 400

municipalities have requested and received

data for their BEIs so far.

The new data sharing platform was launched

in November 2014. In December 2014 the

best practice developed by the Italian

Consortium was published in one of the most

important reports of Environmental Research

Institution at national level: The Report n. X

on the Environmental Situation in Italy edited

by ISPRA and in particular at page 63 of the

Focus Cities and climate change

challenge (Le citt e la sfida dei

cambiamenti climatici). The article is

entitled: Data sharing process for the

electricity sector in the Covenant of Mayors

framework: the best practice defined for the

electricity sector by the MESHARTILITY

European Project (IL PROCESSO DI DATA

SHARING PER IL SETTORE ELETTRICO

NEL CONTESTO DELLINIZIATIVA PATTO

DEI SINDACI: LA BEST PRACTICE

DEFINITA DAL PROGETTO EUROPEO

MESHARTILITY).

On the 18th of December 2014 the best

practice about data sharing mechanism was

presented and discussed during the official

presentation of The Report n. X on the

Environmental Situation in Italy edited by

ISPRA in collaboration with the Ministry of

the Environment.

Gentlemens agreement in Spain

In the framework of the MESHARTILITY

project, Spanish energy utilities and local

authorities were gathered for the first time to

discuss their individual needs. During these

Meanwhile, all the municipalities involved in

the MESHARTILITY encourage other local

authorities to follow. As to their point of view:

SEAP allows municipality to understand the

existing situation, set up a long-term vision,

plan necessary investments and search also

for innovative financing instruments, e.g.

cooperation with energy service companies

for renovation of public buildings and/or

street lighting. As indicated by some

interviewees, more good practice examples

and their systematic presentation will

increase the number of municipalities joining

the CoM or any similar national initiative to

reduce energy consumption and CO2

emissions.

There are also some important drivers and

barriers that municipalities should assess

and address before starting the SEAP

process. These are e.g. ensuring support of

the top management, ensuring credibility of

the SEAP team, setting up of a long-term

vision and building capacity to plan and

search for appropriate funding.

Whats new in the project

countries?

On the country level there have been

developed many interesting actions that

might be transferred to other regions as best

practices. Maybe you will find a source of

inspiration here?

Best practices in energy data

sharing

Data sharing mechanism

introduced by ENEL Distribuzione

in Italy

ENEL Distribuzione S.p.A., being the first

Italian distributor system operator,

ENEL DISTRIBUZIONE TEMPLATE IN USE TO PROVIDE THE SEAP DATA

Year Region Province Municipality Type of use Electricity

Consumption

(kWh)

Municipal buildings, equipment/facilities ...

Tertiary (non municipal) buildings, equi-

pment/facilities ...

Residential buildings ...

Municipal public lighting ...

Agriculture ...

Industry (with a connection > 20MW) ...

Total yearly amount ...

distributing electricity to over 31 million of

end-users located in more than 8 000

municipalities, has put in place a data

sharing system to cope with the local

authorities needs to develop their

Sustainable Energy Action Plans within the

framework of the Covenant of Mayors.

Notably ENEL Distribuzione has defined, on

a voluntary basis and well ahead of the kick-

off of the MESHARTILITY project, a template

to share the electricity consumption data in

compliance with the regulation on privacy.

Subsequently and through the participation

of ENEL Distribuzione in S.p.A. the

MESHARTILITY project, it has been possible

to upgrade and improve this data sharing

mechanism, thanks to the strong

collaboration with the MESHARTILITY

partners (among all Borghi Autentici dItalia,

SOGESCA), the Italian cities and notably

through the fruitful stakeholders dialogue

during the European and national

roundtables.

Moreover, this new data sharing mechanism

envisages the signature of a bilateral

agreement between ENEL Distribuzione and

the local authorities interested to get the

electricity consumption data from their

territory by using the SEAP Data Request

Form available on the ENEL Distribuzione

Web Page. This data sharing mechanism,

based on the signature of a bilateral

agreements, has introduced a stable, direct

and systematic collaboration between ENEL

Distribuzione and the Italian municipalities, in

which ENEL operates.

The new data sharing mechanism has been

developed by using the official SEAP

template (downloadable from the Covenant

of Mayors Web Page) which means that the

local authorities will receive the electricity

consumption data of their entire territory in

the following format:

Best practices in SEAP

implementation

Installation of solar thermal

systems for households in Petlovac

(Croatia)

Municipality of Petlovac is a small rural

municipality settled in the eastern part of

Croatia. It has high insolation, however poor

utilisation of solar energy.

Municipality of Petlovac has developed

with the support of DOOR, MESHARTILITY

partner application for co-funding to the

National Environmental Protection and

Energy Efficiency Fund, for installation of

solar thermal systems for households, which

has been listed as one of measures in jointly

developed and adopted SEAP. The action

allows households to install solar thermal

systems for sanitary hot water and heating

back up. In total 16 households will be given

subvention for the installation (80% of the

installation cost). Total cost of the action is

almost 400 000 EUR, allowing estimated

financial savings of about 40 000 EUR. The

National Environmental Protection and

Energy Efficiency Fund has supported the

action with 80% co-financing, municipality of

Petlovac has provided 2.5%, while the final

beneficiaries, households, need to cover

17.5% of the costs.

This action presents good example of

sharing financial burden and promoting shift

from traditional energy sources to renewable

energy among citizens.

Preferential reserved parking

spaces for electric, hybrid or

low emission vehicles in Birkirkara

(Malta)

In the year 2012 the Ministry for Resources

and Rural Affairs of Malta set up a

Committee whose task was to draw up the

National Strategy for the Introduction of

Electro-mobility in Malta and Gozo. The

Government of Malta has set an indicative

target of 5 000 electric vehicles uptake by

2020. Malta is obliged to increase its share of

cleaner transportation, both with respect to

the reduction of air pollution required by the

Air Quality Framework Directive as well as

the reduction in green house gas emissions

under the Climate and Energy Package. In

order to achieve such goals the Maltese

Government has launched the DemoEV

project that will contribute towards the

attainment of a carbon neutral road

transportation system in Malta by putting into

practice, testing, evaluating and

disseminating a number of actions with

respect to the achievement of electromobility.

This, in the long run, will decrease the level

of dependency on internal combustion

engines which are a major contributing factor

to the deteriorating air quality level in several

localities around the Maltese Islands.

The project aims at the installation of 90

charging points in localities across Malta and

Gozo. Municipalities: Lija, Birkirkara, Naxxar

and Zebbug, through the assistance of the

MESHARTILITY project, managed to have

these charging point installed for the benefit

of their residents. Due to this measure the

communities saw a reduction of emissions

on their area as the residents have the actual

infrastructure in place. The charging points

meetings utilities learnt about the specific

data requirements that the Covenant of

Mayors imply, and what would be their role in

the process. No formal agreements on data

sharing were signed, as every service

provided by energy utilities is regulated by

the national law, and utilities cannot bind to

other agreements. Even though, a

gentlemens agreement between the main

electricity utilities and MESHARTILITY

Spanish partners was put in place to provide

consumption data for the municipalities of

both regions participating in the project.

Annual data would be aggregated by sectors

and zip codes, and would be sent to the

MESHARTILITY partners, who would receive

the data every year in February and would

redistribute them to each municipality.

Agreements supporting the national

regulations in Croatia

In Croatia agreements on data sharing

between electricity distributors and local

authorities have been signed. These

documents support and strengthen existing

obligations set up by the national law which

regulates data sharing between distribution

system operators and local authorities.

Signed agreements have been proven as

good practice for obtaining data needed for

development of different local energy plans

and developing new EU project applications.

Up to date, 11 agreements have been signed

in Croatia, all centrally approved by the HEP

DSO.

were installed in public parking lots, and

other easily accessible locations. The pillars

are connected to the grid with a three-phase

power supply to minimize the time of

charging the vehicle from eight hours down

to four hours.

The charging points are available to the

public and they are inter-connected and

remotely managed. Therefore a system of

pre-booking of any single charging point is

available.

This is one way for the Maltese localities to

implement the measures identified in the

SEAP as due to lack of jurisdiction and funds

it is very difficult for them to implement such

a major project themselves. Therefore the

Local Councils' Association has held various

meetings with all the major stakeholders in

Malta so as such measures could be

implemented through a joint cooperation with

the national government. This will allow the

local councils to implement the measure

without breaking the bank.

New biomass boiler plant in the

town of Jgeva (Estonia)

In September 2014 the renovated biomass

boiler plant was opened in Jgeva. The new

6 MW biomass boiler plant, which uses

mainly local woodchips and can also use

peat as fuel, replaced the old gas boilers.

This boiler covers the base consumption in

Jgeva and the old gas boiler will be used

only for peak loads. The total investment was

1.4 million euro and the new boiler provides

district heating for 52 apartment buildings

with approximately 2 000 apartments, 34

administrative or service buildings and one

private house.

The main goal of this renovation was to

reduce the costs of heating for consumers.

The evening event at Rodon Hotel included

lectures on energy saving measures,

renewable energy technology use in the

residential sector, as well as the Support

Schemes for RES and EE investments.

There was also presented the Sustainable

Energy Action Plan for Agros Community,

which aims at 26% reduction of CO2

emissions in the territory by 2020.

A Sustainable Energy Day at Kyperounta

community was organized on the 7th of

November 2014 with similar programme for

the students of the Elementary School of

Kyperounta. Various activities related to the

topic of sustainable energy followed including

the game Giant snake of energy and the

children painting on canvas inspired by the

motto Saving energy at school, at home, in

the community.

The students paintings were exposed at the

THOI Hall of Kyperounta during the evening

event, which included informing the

community residents about renewable

Using woodchips decreased the cost for

heating by 20% said the CEO of Erakte

AS. Due to this investment we have also

reduced remarkably the environmental

impact and CO2 emissions.

The idea to replace the old gas boilers with

new biomass boilers has been around for

some time. Five years ago an analysis

conducted together with Jgeva town

suggested the change into district heating.

The economic recession in the meantime

held back all developments. The new

incentive for this investment rose from the

SEAP composed through the MESHARTILITY

project. During the preparation of SEAP the

district heating operators and local decision

makers were brought together to discuss the

situation and they finally made the decision

to switch into biomass.

In 2015 the company plans to renovate

another 1 km of pipes in the 8.5 km

distribution network in Jgeva, which will

furthermore reduce heat losses and fuel

consumption.

Best practices in Energy

Days organization

Sustainable Energy Days

in Cyprus

Within the framework of the MESHARTILITY

project, a Sustainable Energy Day was held

in Agros community on the 17th of October

2014. It began by informing the students of

Agros Primary School about renewable

energy, energy saving and sustainable

transport. This was followed by activities

related to those topics, as the giant energy

board game and the drawing of paintings

"Saving energy at school, at home, in my

community." The students artistic works

were exposed at the Rodon Hotel during

evening event which completed the

Sustainable Energy Day of Agros.

energy technologies and energy saving. The

informative lecture was attended by 80

citizens.

Green Energy Days in Bulgaria

Two of the Bulgarian municipalities, involved

in the MESHARTILITY project, Tran and

Pavlikeni, actively participated in the EUSEW

2014. Green Energy Days were organized

for the first time, on the 23rd and 24th of June

2014 respectively, in connection with the

municipalities accession to the Covenant of

Mayors.

The representatives of municipal

administration and local communities were

made acquainted with the European and

national policies directed towards reduction

of GHG emissions and rational use of

energy, as well as with the important role of

municipalities in the process of reaching the

goals of these policies. Best practices, which

could be followed and replicated by the

municipal authorities and citizens, were

presented to the audience as well.

On the occasion of the Energy Days,

contests for childrens drawings were

organized under the title My green town.

More than 40 children worked on the theme

and the official announcement and rewarding

of the winners took place during the events.

Intelligent Energy Day in Poland

(Czstochowa)

Many residents of Czstochowa the city

actively involved in the MESHARTILITY

project and students of primary and

secondary schools could find out how much

they know about green energy and their

impact on the climate during Intelligent

Energy Day organized on the 9th of June on

Biegaski Square.

The energy quiz attracted great attention and

interest. One of the teams, the one

composed of the Deputy Mayor Mirosaw

Soboraka, Director for Production and

Distribution of Fortum Power & Heat Poland

Sp z o.o. Piotr Grnik, Head of the

Department of Environmental Protection,

Agriculture and Forestry in the city of

Czstochowa Andrzej Szczerba and

Councillors of Czstochowa Andrzej

Szczerba and Janusz Danek, demonstrated

extensive environmental knowledge and thus

defeated the team of students from the

Technical Education School Complex.

Deputy Mayor of Czstochowa handed

awards to the winners of the earlier

announced photo competition entitled "Photo

with the energy in the background", as well

as to the authors of the best slogans

promoting energy and water saving, the best

eco-themed crossword "EKOGWKA the

ecological crossword and the winners of

the artistic contest "My way to save energy."

The Office of the Municipal Engineer,

together with the the Association of Polish

Scouting Region Silesia and Fortum Power

& Heat Poland, has prepared a number of

competitions for preschoolers, students and

senior citizens. The youngest inhabitants of

Czstochowa willingly created works of art,

which common theme was ecology. A lot of

fun brought them the game of keeping the

colorful balls on the scarf. While playing the

Wheel of Fortune participants answered

questions about the waste segregation,

renewable energy sources and methods of

saving energy. Winners received awards,

among others ecological bags, pens,

lanyards and games related to environmental

protection.

Moreover, the performances of students from

educational institutions involved in the

project EURONET 50/50 MAX were held,

presenting their efforts as well as finished

and planned activities aimed at reducing

the consumption of energy and water, in the

form of interesting scenes, poems, slogans.

All works submitted to the competitions could

have been seen at special exhibition

organized on the central square.

The aim of this event was to promote

ecological attitude and behavior among the

residents and to raise their awareness of

renewable energy and energy efficiency.

Municipal Intelligent Energy Days are

organized by all the cities which are

signatories of the Covenant of Mayors, which

was joined by Czstochowa in November

2012.