Joint workshop of Bulgarian National Trust Ecofund (NTEF) and The Romanian Network of Energy Cities (OER)
Experts and leaders from Bulgarian and Romanian municipalities discussed on 5th and 6th December the future role of municipal energy managers and the channels of communication with the central government.
Representatives of the relevant ministries, national agencies and professional NGOs from both countries participated actively the discussions as well.
The objective of the workshop was to elaborate the model for enabling municipalities in both countries implement successfully their role as energy managers on local level and thus contribute to the national Climate objectives.
Situation in both countries was presented, as well as the good practices from Germany.
Besides an overview of the situation in Bulgaria, interviews with to municipal energy managers were conducted, as well as two available analytical internet-based tools were demonstrated for the future operations of the energy management services in the municipalities.
Romanian partners in their presentations were focusing on the barriers and possible solutions and actions for improving the communication between local and national levels as well as of the need to identify and specify the criteria for energy efficiency measures.
For both countries there is a need to update legislation, to undertake measures for improving the professional skills of municipal administration and to focus on the tools and mechanisms for the implementation of assigned roles for the municipal energy management.
The next steps for the partners’ experts’ team of the project include training for the Bulgarian pilot municipalities and pilot implementation of the created model while monitoring its relevance in practice. The Romanian team will work on the set of criteria and the design and testing of the most effective channels for communication between local and national levels.
In one year now, public consultations will be held in both countries to generate endorsement of the created models by the professional community and stakeholders in both countries. The final conferences will be attended by the representatives of the partner countries to disseminate the results and roll out the implementation of the two models in the other municipalities.
The workshop is part of the project MENERGERS -Energy Managers’ Services in Municipalities, supported by the EUKI program of the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and climate Action of the Republic of Germany.
