Category: News room

On 4 and 5 December 2019, 20 experts from Algeria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Egypt, France, Greece, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Portugal and Tunisia gathered at the Union for the Mediterranean in Barcelona, Spain for the first meeting of the UfM Working Group (WG) on Energy Efficiency for Appliances.

The meetMED national experts presented their national experiences and engaged in topical discussion with experts from SE4All, UNEP, UNIDO C2E2, as well as from the ONG CLASP Europe and the private sector representatives from APPLiA and FRESH Egypt.

The discussion built on meetMED country questionnaires on EE in appliances and on the key meetMED reports on quality infrastructure, consumption of household appliances and regional labelling program, which will be published on the meetMED website in the upcoming months.  
The participants confirmed their interest to convene again the WG and indicated the need for a road map towards a common approach to standards and labels for appliances in the Mediterranean region in view of the UfM Ministerial meeting in 2021.

The work of the WG will be presented at the next meeting of the UfM REEE platform in January 2020.

On Wednesday, 4 December 2019, ENEA hosted in Rome the meetMED workshop “INVESTMENT CLIMATE FOR ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND RENEWABLE ENERGY IN SELECTED MEDITERRANEAN COUNTRIES” in the presence of high level representatives of the Italian Ministry of Economic Development and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, experts from the Mediterranean Association of National Agencies for Energy Management (MEDENER) and the Regional Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (RCREEE), as well as other energy stakeholders involved in the meetMED activities.

The workshop presented preliminary country reports developed by ENEA on investment climate for energy efficiency and renewable energy in two strategic countries of the region, Algeria and Palestine. A roundtable was also held among experts to highlight the state-of-the- art among the other meetMED partner countries. The event was attended by stakeholders of the public and private sector, financing institutions and banks, experts and researchers, regional and international organizations as well as of the civil society.

The discussion underlined the need for further dialogue and a greater awareness of the opportunities arising from investments in energy efficiency and renewable energies, also in terms of job creation, as an effective tool to address social issues from a forward-looking perspective. A round table discussion took place among major stakeholders of the Mediterranean Energy Associations, RCREEE, MEDENER, APRUE, PEC, NREA, ALMEE, LCEC. This highlighted the current barriers faced by domestic and foreign direct investors in energy efficiency and/or in renewable energy and revealed possible solutions to overcome legislative and institutional gaps that were identified at national level

Last week, the meetMED project was invited to participate in the Clima-MED Workshop on the Action Plans for Access to Sustainable Energy and for Climate (PAAEDCs) held at the Centre of Training and Decentralisation Support (CFAD) in Tunis, Tunisia. The workshop was an occasion for meetMED and Clima-Med to explore the synergies between the two projects and identify areas of mutual interest for future closer cooperation.

Our Communication officer, Ms Alice Giallombardo, presented the meetMED Project at the presence of the representatives of the EU Delegation in Tunisia, the Tunisian Ministries for Local Affairs, Environment, and International cooperation, some NGOs, such as the WWF Tunisia and Tunisie Ecologie, and the representatives of around 20 Tunisian municipalities.

Despite their different scopes of action – meetMED targeting mostly the national agencies and ministries and Clima-Med focusing mostly on the local level –  the two projects share numerous goals, namely supporting sustainable climate and energy policies and strategies, identifying concrete pilot actions to be implemented by national and local authorities and facilitating climate investments and the setup of finance mechanisms at national and local levels.

When presenting meetMED activities taking place in Tunisia in the biennium 2109-2020, the audience at the Workshop showed a particular interest for the meetMED training courses, whose training packages are meant to be replicable across the SEMCs at different levels. Further collaboration between the two projects has been assessed as mutually beneficial and is envisaged soon.

The French Agency for Environment and Energy Management (ADEME) and the Palestinian Energy Centre (PEC) have jointly organised a technical mission to Ramallah, Palestine on 17-19 September 2019, as part of the activities of the Workstream “National RE EE Strategies and Policies”.

The meetMED REN experts, Mr. Didier Bosseboeuf and Mr. Thierry Méraud met with the main Palestinian institutions involved in local energy policy and energy efficiency actions (Palestinian Energy Authority, Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, Palestinian Electricity Regulatory Council, Ministry of Environment Affairs) and other relevant stakeholders.

The mission aimed at evaluating opportunities and constraints to implement EE monitoring in Palestine with the same approach that has been tested in Algeria, Tunisia, Lebanon and Morocco (see the main outcomes of the Workshop held in Lebanon last March here) and complements the mission carried out in Jordan in July 2019.

The first elements gathered during this mission are rather encouraging, since it has confirmed the interest of all the Palestinian interlocutors in the creation of a common regional Observatory, it has highlighted that EE tools and approaches have already been carried out in the country, and it has clearly highlighted PEC’s expectations and real needs. The third and last mission is foreseen for next November 2019 in Egypt.

The 2^nd UfM Energy and Climate Business Forum was held in Lisbon, Portugal on 18 July 2019. Organised by the Union for the Mediterranean together with the Portuguese Ministry of Environment and Energy Transition and the Portuguese Energy Agency (ADENE), the event specifically focused on “Supporting local authorities in their efforts towards the energy transition” and gathered 150 representatives of local authorities, mayors, stakeholders, private sector investors, companies, service providers, international financial institutions and international and regional organisations working in the field of energy and climate action.

In this context, Ms Roberta Boniotti, MEDENER Secretary General, was invited to present the meetMED Project. The energy transition is indeed at the heart of the meetMED Project, whose main goal is fostering the energy transition throughout all Southern and Eastern Mediterranean Countries (SEMCs) under the European Neighborhood Instrument (ENI). Ms Boniotti illustrated meetMED activities particularly related to the main topic of the Forum: support to public authorities and local stakeholders. Firstly, she mentioned the establishment of a Regional Expert Network (meetMED REN), composed by more than 50 experts coming from the national agencies for EE and RE of 13 Mediterranean Countries. Its aim is to provide the necessary technical support to national, regional and local authorities for the assessment of the existing energy policies and the implementation of the necessary most advanced energy policies in the future Energy Transition Scenario. Secondly, she cited the elaboration of the meetMED training package and the organization of the corresponding training course, focused on the use of a sustainable energy design toolkit for public authorities and aimed at reinforcing public awareness and capacity building of local stakeholders.

As stated by Ms Boniotti, with respect to the implementation of integrated professional training courses, the meetMED project supports the planning of vocational training schemes for RES and EE experts in order to consolidate and improve the skills of relevant actors, who can be able to manage effectively RES and EE market penetration at the national, regional and local level.

With respect to regional cooperation, which was another key point of the Forum, the meetMED project supports regional collaboration, especially to build technical capacity for the energy transition in the eight target Countries of the project: Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine and Tunisia. Besides the intergovernmental cooperation among the SEMCs national energy agencies, meetMED has sought to build synergies with other EU-funded projects targeting the energy transition in the Mediterranean region, namely CLIMAMED, SWITCHMED and WES. Furthermore, in the framework of the Project, cooperation and interaction at the regional, national and local level are deemed necessary in order to spread common monitoring tools and benchmarks, such as EE and RE indicators and policy measures (ODYSSEE MURE), which can help public administrations to monitor periodically and evaluate the impact of EE and RE policies.

Finally, Ms Boniotti concluded by stating the importance of regional networks as potential experimental hubs where better dissemination and communication strategies as well as awareness-raising campaigns on EE and RE benefits can be developed by providing shared guidelines, studies and innovative tools that target different audiences.

On 18 June 2019, ANME hosted the second meeting of the meetMED REN experts, gathering the members of the task force on energy efficiency (EE) in buildings. This activity was coordinated by ANME (Tunisia), ADENE (Portugal), ADEME (France), ALMEE (Lebanon) and RCREEE.

During the workshop, the REN experts were asked to present the main achievements and challenges in the implementation of national measures for the EE in buildings and to discuss key issues relating to behavioral changes, financing, awareness-raising activities and capacity building, encountered at the national level.

The meeting was also an opportunity to share policy recommendations, which will contribute to draft the meetMED report on Energy Efficiency in Buildings. Expected in October 2019, the report will cover the following meetMED countries: Algeria, Egypt, Greece, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Portugal, Spain and Tunisia.

At the end of the workshop, ANME General Director and the Secretariat of the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction (GABC) signed the Tunisian Alliance for Buildings and Construction (TABC), which is the second national alliance for the building sector launched in the Mediterranean region – after the Moroccan one. The TABC will bring together the stakeholders in order to define a national action plan for energy efficient buildings and renovation in Tunisia.

The preliminary conclusions of the meetMED Workshop on EE in buildings are available here.

The two-days Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) meeting on Sustainability, Energy Efficiency, Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience in Housing took place on 27-28 June 2019 in Barcelona, Spain. The event aimed at identifying essential elements to be incorporated into the Action Plan on Urban Development for 2021-2027, by highlighting opportunities for twinning, capacity building, field visits, and raising awareness on EU calls for funding in the fields of sustainable, energy efficient, low carbon and resilient housing. In addition, its goal was to identify project ideas on sustainable housing that the European Investment Bank (EIB) could consider under its UfM-labelled Urban Projects Finance Initiative-Economic Resilience Initiative (UPFI-ERI), as well as UNIDO under its Sustainable Cities programme, by exploring possibilities for combining grants, loans, guarantees and finance strategies.

In this context, Dr Matteo Barra, meetMED Project Manager, was invited to illustrate the meetMED activities related to energy efficiency in the building sector in order to explore mutually reinforcing synergies and avoid possible duplication of efforts. In the field of energy efficient buildings, meetMED has consolidated its task forces of experts within the broader meetMED Regional Expert Network (meetMED REN), which counts 56 members from 13 countries. The meetMED REN taskforce on EE in buildings met last June in Tunis to discuss the national papers, the regional report (expected in Autumn 2019) and the preliminary conclusions on the institutional, regulatory and policy design. The meetMED REN taskforce on EE and RE monitoring, instead, met in Beirut in March 2019 to update the common monitoring tools in Algeria, Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia and spread them to Jordan, Egypt and Palestine. The taskforce on EE in appliances, then, will discuss national papers and regional report in Cairo next October 2019. Finally, a meetMED professional training on EE in the building sector will take place in Tunis next January 2020.

Inputs proposed by Dr Barra to the UfM Action Plan for Urban Development (2021-2027) included creating synergies between meetMED activities on EE in the building sector and those of the UfM Working Group (WG) on Sustainable and Affordable Housing. Among others, UfM delegates were invited to join the meetMED taskforces as well as the meetMED professional trainings, so as to ensure a broader geographical impact of the meetMED activities. The institutional link between experts in housing and experts in energy is essential to implement the energy dimension of the urban agenda and, vice versa, the urban dimension of the energy agenda. This could result also in a coordination between the UfM REEE Platform and the UfM WG on Affordable Housing, the involvement of experts from the meetMED taskforce on EE in Buildings, and the support to the national and regional dimensions of the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction (GABC) and of the Programme for Energy Efficiency in Buildings (PEEB) as incubators of pilot projects in the sector.

The meeting hosted also interventions by GABC, PEEB, EnvirobatBDM, the Barcelona School of Architecture, the World Green Building Council, Housing Europe, UN-Habitat, UNIDO and the European Investment Bank (EIB).

The next meeting of the UfM WG on Sustainable and Affordable Housing will take place in November 2019 whilst the next annual meeting of the UfM Energy Platforms in January 2020, both at the UfM Headquarters in Barcelona.

Developed within the framework of the meetMED working area on “Reinforcing public awareness and capacity building of local stakeholders on EE and RES”, the first meetMED training on the use of Sustainable Energy Design Toolkit for Public Authorities has wrapped up yesterday in Algiers, Algeria.

Hosted by the Algerian National Agency for the Promotion and Rationalisation of Energy Use (APRUE), the meetMED training course has been co-organized by CRES (Greece) in cooperation with ANME (Tunisia) and RCREEE, based on the sustainable energy design training package jointly designed by ANME (Tunisia), ADENE (Portugal), CRES (Greece) and ENEA (Italy), and building on sustainable energy toolkits already designed in other projects, such as CES–MED, SUDEP, INSMART, the Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy initiative and Clima South.

Its main aim was to provide representatives of national and local public authorities with guidelines on the use of sustainable energy design toolkit as well as of financing solutions for sustainable energy projects in a context of improved multi-level governance and better adaptation of EU legislation to local realities in the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean countries.

More than 20 participants from 9 Mediterranean countries signed up for the training and came up with useful suggestions to improve the role of national energy agencies and authorities in supporting RE and EE planning and implementation, including at the local level. In particular, during the five-days training, it was underlined the essential role public authorities play in setting the goals and monitoring their implementation as well as in leading by example in the design of EE and RE projects. Special relevance was given also to regional cooperation, as key element to share common monitoring tools – such as EE and RE indicators, effective methodologies for energy audits and qualifications for energy managers, as well as experiences on EE in public buildings and finance schemes to implement energy efficiency actions. At this regard, regional cooperation at local level was encouraged in the framework of the Covenant of Mayors. With respect to communication and transparency, greater involvement of stakeholders at different levels was urged as well as improved communication on energy planning activities and the creation of energy communities to increase social acceptance of RE and EE projects. Finally, concerning more financial aspects, it was identified the need to carry out life-cycle cost analysis for EE supplies in public procurement and to simplify the access to information on green and climate finance.

The meetMED Sustainable Energy Design Toolkit for Public Authorities is available on meetMED website here!

The next meetMED trainings will take place in December 2019 in Cairo, Egypt and in January 2020 in Tunis, Tunisia. The first will focus on Energy Audits in Industrial SMEs, whilst the latter will focus on EE and RE in Buildings. More information will be circulated in the next months.

On 19 June 2019, the meetMED team took part in the event co-organised by MEDENER and EUROMED Cities Network in the framework of the European Sustainable Energy Week 2019 in Brussels. Moderated by Mr Matteo Barra, meetMED Project Manager, the event explored the “Role of Local Authorities and National Agencies for Efficient Buildings in the Mediterranean region” and focused particularly on the possible ways to scale-up and foster innovative tools for energy efficient buildings. The debate among the panellists has been trigged after the lack of political commitment was identified by the public in the room as the main missing element to foster energy transition in the building sector. The panellists reacted to the provocative outcome of the poll by presenting diverse initiatives to tackle the problem at different governance levels. By opening the debate, representatives from the European Commission, the Union for the Mediterranean and MEDENER presented the initiatives taken in the Mediterranean region at the supranational level. Firstly, Mr Eero Ailio, Adviser on Energy Transition and Local Governance at the DG Energy of the European Commission, emphasised the key role local authorities play – particularly when grouped in networks, like the Covenant of Mayors – to ensure that EU and national policies have an effective impact on the ground. The Senior Deputy Secretary General for Energy and Climate Action of the Union for the Mediterranean, Mr Jorge Borrego, stressed the importance of energy transition as an effective way to act against climate change. He continued by acknowledging the role the meetMED Project is playing on the matter especially through the work carried out by its task forces of experts on EE in Buildings and EE in appliances. Particular attention has been given also to the process of the refurbishment of existing buildings, often overshadowed as, most of the times, the owners of the buildings requiring renovation are not their actual users. The Secretary General of MEDENER, Ms Roberta Boniotti, gave an overview of the work carried out by Association in the field, including the activities carried out by 8 out if its 13 members in the framework of the meetMED project with the aim of putting energy efficiency and renewable energy at the heart of public policy making in the countries of both the Northern and Southern shores of the Mediterranean. Ms Boniotti highlighted the importance of raising public authorities’ awareness with respect to the feasibility of investments in the EE and RE sectors. Likewise, the Secretary General of EUROMED Cities Network, Mr Bernard Massabo, shed the light on the relevance of creating synergies in the whole Mediterranean area, which may trigger the replication of good practices. Particularly, he mentioned the activities EUROMED Cities is implementing in the framework of the INTERREG programme.

The panel discussion addressed the topic of innovative tools for energy efficient buildings from a more local perspective, thus providing very practical examples. Mr Evangelos Evangelides, Mayor of Aradippou (Cyprus), stressed the importance of informing the citizens about the incentives and policies in force at the municipal level to make buildings more energy efficient. Particularly, he described the initiative of the reward cards implemented by his Municipality – where citizens accumulate points for any EE measures implemented, equivalent to a tax reduction of the same amount – and the pilot action plan for the zero production of household waste, in force by September 2019. Ms Claire Roumet, Executive officer of Energy Cities, contributed to the debate by emphasizing the key role played by innovative technological tools, like ECOLOCAL – a mobile App tracking energy consumption in the different buildings – and by projects targeting reduction of energy consumption in schools, where pupils have the right and the responsibility to choose how to invest savings coming from reduced energy consumption in their schools. Mr Pier Luigi Porta, Researcher at ENEA, presented the TEESCHOOLS project, which provides new solutions to Local Authorities both in technical and financial terms to implement Nearly Zero Energy Building (NZEB) renovation activities in Mediterranean schools, thus raising awareness also among the youngest generations. These initiatives have shown that children pay more attention to the issues relating to energy transition and climate change compared to their parents, who, thanks to them, learn to act more responsibly on these matters. Mr Philippe Masset, Deputy Director of the Europe and International Division at ADEME, and Mr Radouan Yessouf, Head of Energy Efficiency in the BuildingDivision at AMEE, provided, then, concrete examples of measures implemented by national energy agencies from two Mediterranean countries. Mr Masset illustrated the actions implemented by ADEME in the framework of the broader French multilevel governance system, which intertwines national initiatives on energy efficiency with the regional ones. For instance, ADEME, in cooperation with the Regional Council of Ile de France, created a private-public company to help financing energy consumption reduction measures and overcome the barriers to investments in the sector. Furthermore, a Regional Council made up of 17 French regions, established a dedicated platform for energy efficiency renovation in buildings, which is meant to train all the stakeholders involved in the sector and to make investments more effective on people’s lives. Likewise, Mr Yessouf presented the main measures implemented in Morocco, where the building sector is one of the most energy-intensive sectors. All EE policy measures need for strong financial incentives from the public institutions, especially in the first years of their implementation. Among other incentives, Morocco decided to exempt imports of EE materials from VAT and other custom tariffs as well as to help Moroccan private companies through the Programme MorSEFF, supported by the European Union. In addition, Morocco managed to support its national energy transition thanks to an initiative aimed at modernising energy systems in mosques and other public buildings and at creating new jobs: The Green Mosques and Buildings Project, which was initiated in 2014 by the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Religious Affairs in cooperation with SIE, the Moroccan state energy investment company, and AMEE.