Regional Development and Energy Agencies supporting municipality Sustainable Energy Communities (SECs) to jointly become active energy actors in Europe

Author: Lucia CATALANI, City_SEC Project Coordinator, Italy - Email

The City_SEC project arises from the common need to support the local and regional policy makers in order to adhere to the Covenant of Mayors and achieve its objectives, in particular, in those regions where there are few municipalities as signatories.

City_SEC aims at conducting an energy baseline assessment and developing Sustainable Energy Action Plans (SEAP) for 44 municipalities, thus helping them to become Sustainable Energy Communities. The 44 municipalities involved will be supported by the project Consortium to sign up to the Covenant of Mayors (CoM) initiative and to develop actions that will go beyond the 20-20-20 EU energy targets.

The activities are carried out by formalising 6 City_SECs comprising several municipalities as members and each City_SEC sharing a common strategy to reduce the CO₂ emissions and increase energy efficiency in the region. The consortium will organise training and information activities aimed at raising awareness and building capacity of City_SEC members, in particular of policy makers and civil society, on sustainable energy issues.

City_SEC will also explore the role Regional Development Agencies (RDA) can play to support the Covenant of Mayors initiative by outlining recommendations based on the experiences of the participating 5 RDAs. Major outputs and Results - including main quantitative result indicators

• 44 Sustainable Energy Action Plans;
• 44 Municipalities drafting the Energy Baseline Assessment;
• 44 new Members to the Covenant of Mayors initiative;
• 6 City_SECs, composed by at least 5 members each, jointly take part to the raising awareness activities: 1 international study visit and 5 local study tours, 4 training sessions in each City_SEC.