Vyhoda is one of 48 municipalities selected to participate in the Network “Development of Municipal Energy Plans”. At the final event in Kyiv, they presented their achievements together with three other municipalities. The Municipal Energy Plan (MEP) will be approved shortly at a meeting of the local council, since they were waiting for the approval of the Guidelines for the Development of Local Energy Plans, which came into force earlier in March.
The Municipal Energy Plan of the Vyhoda Municipality is a document that offers a detailed analysis of the energy consumption of the local municipal buildings, the calculation of the amount of investments required for energy saving and energy efficiency projects, as well as the estimation of the effects of their implementation.
“Having developed the Municipal Energy Plan, the municipality can now analyse the resources used by the municipality, which is the first step towards their effective use. The projects developed at the stage of preparation of the MEP will be the key to an effective municipality strategy aimed at reducing costs and improving the provision of services,” said Maksym Chopei, Adviser on Decentralisation and Local Self-Government at the Regional Office of U-LEAD with Europe in the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast.
In addition to calculations of energy consumption and the investment component, the document also contains a wide project pool. These are 57 projects for a total amount of more than UAH 600 million, estimations for the implementation of which are provided until 2030. They include modernisation of schools, insulation of municipal buildings, installation of solar panels on the roof of the hospital, etc.
According to Tetiana Nastasiak, the Chief Specialist of the Sector of Economic Development, Investments and Project Activities of the Vyhoda Settlement Council, several projects have their estimate documentation already developed and ready to be submitted to tenders and grants.
The most difficult thing during the development of the MEP, according to the head of the Vyhoda municipality, Mykola Matsalak, was the lack of a complete picture of energy consumption by various sectors of the local economy. So they considered creating a separate unit that would cover this information and also become somewhat of a municipal hub of knowledge, competencies, technology and estimates.
“The problem was the lack of data on the energy consumption in the municipality. It took us more than 3 months to collect data on the consumption of energy resources, for which we pay a lot of money every month,” said Mykola Matsalak.
However, all this effort is an investment in the future. Mykola Matsalak pointed to the calculations showing that the implementation of projects from Vyhoda’s MEP pool would allow for cutting down the consumption of energy resources by 16,055 MW, and CO2 emissions by 30,915 t.
“We do realise that by integrating into the European community, we will join a European common market, including the energy market, and energy prices will constantly increase. Our municipality is located close to the EU border. This opens up exciting opportunities to study and use European best practices in energy planning and energy efficiency,” said the head of the Vyhoda municipality.
Mykola Matsalak named the main goals of the energy plan in the Vyhoda municipality:
- Increase in energy efficiency (from 5% to 64% estimated saving of energy resources after the implementation of projects);
- Development of renewable energy sources (increasing their share from 13% to 50% in various sectors of energy planning);
- Attracting investment for the implementation of projects, as the resources of the local budget are clearly insufficient.
Furthermore, in order to speed up the search for funding opportunities for projects as much as possible, experts of the Vyhoda Settlement Council plan to enter projects from the MEP pool into the DREAM State Electronic System, which provides a single digital route for all modernisation and restoration projects.
Importantly, pursuant to the Law of Ukraine “On Energy Efficiency”, all municipalities are to develop a local energy plan by the end of 2024. This document is developed for 10 years in order to ensure sustainable energy development of municipalities and regions.
48 municipalities from all over Ukraine and 6 municipalities from the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast — Bogorodchany, Burshtyn, Vyhoda, Nadvirna, Rohatyn and Rozhniativ — joined the Experience Sharing Network “Development of Municipal Energy Plans” established by U-LEAD.
