Policy Overview
Energy efficiency at the local level is not always a local issue. National policy determines many of the incentives for and impediments against wiser energy management. In Eastern Europe, key issues are tariffs that are not based on energy consumption and subsidies that remove any incentive to use less energy. Many of these policies are decided in national capitals, out of the reach of municipal decision-makers. Equally as important is the high degree of centralization - cities often have little revenue generation and depend on the national government for budget outlays.
The result is that cities have little control over their budgets and little incentive to reduce operating expenses. MUNEE is working with its in-country partners and municipal associations to promote national policy reform that will increase municipal autonomy and create incentives to reduce energy waste.
The Alliance and the MUNEE partners are identifying barriers to the development of sound municipal energy efficiency policies in transition countries. In many countries, we are developing policy analyses and recommendations for distribution to municipal and national governments, western donors, and financial institutions.
One forum is the MUNEE Policy Working Group, which includes representatives from the five national energy efficiency centers, energy managers from leading municipalities, district heating officials, private sector and other non-governmental organization representatives. USAID officials from various countries also participate.
Another forum is policy analysis on a country-specific basis. All MUNEE partners are currently analyzing energy policies within their countries to determine whether these policies support or obstruct energy efficiency initiatives. The Center for Energy Efficiency in Sofia, Bulgaria (EnEffect) has catalogued all of the major policy, technical and knowledge barriers that Bulgarian cities face in energy efficiency project implementation.
Please browse our Library for the "Major Barriers to Implementation of EE Projects in Bulgarian Municipalities " report, which focuses on barriers resulting from national economic and energy policies, and their effects on national energy planning and local self-governance.
Municipalities have an essential role to play in taking these opportunities and applying measures for energy efficiency. For a number of reasons, however, local authorities are not always motivated to employ such measures. The purpose of this paper is to compare the barriers to the improvement of municipal energy efficiency in Bulgaria and in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. The barriers are examined at two levels: national and local. Every country in the region has a certain degree of centralized national government, which removes any potential for energy efficiency on the local level. And if energy efficiency does not happen on the local level, it tends not to happen at all. Macedonia has less local government control and therefore less energy efficiency investment than Bulgaria. The results of this analysis show that local government control over financing, budgeting, expenses and revenues is the key to opening the door to energy efficiency and rehabilitation in public buildings and infrastructure. When the cities cannot control their money and do not own or manage their facilities, the infrastructure will continue to deteriorate.
The Bulgaria experience shows that more local control is necessary but not sufficient -- local officials need to be trained and made more aware of the cost effectiveness of energy management. Based on the identification and analysis of the impediments in both countries, recommendations are made for further action aimed at removing the existing barriers to energy efficiency.
You can visit the MUNEE Papers section of our Library for a copy of the
document “Barriers to Energy
Efficiency at a Municipal Level: Case Studies of Bulgaria and Macedonia
”.
Please check this website for additional papers.