Serbia Municipal Energy Efficiency/Renewable Energy Project, Serbia

Client: State Secretariat for Economic Affairs – SECO, Switzerland

Name of partner(s): Econcept AG; Pöyry Switzerland Ltd.; Alexander Lüchinger Consulting (ALC); Brandes Energie AG, Swiss companies and Victoria Consulting d.o.o, Serbia

Start/Completion Date: October 2014 - July 2015

Project description: The Swiss Cooperation Strategy 2014-2017 with Serbia aims, in its domain ‘Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’, to increase energy efficiency and the use of renewable energy. SECO has decided to implement a new project in the field of sustainable energy management at a sub-national level. The project in the selected municipality was consisted of three components:

• “European Energy Award” (eea) Policy Component included technical assistance towards 2 - 3 selected municipalities in order to assist them on their way to an energy efficient city;
• “Investment” Component corresponds to the financing of a defined infrastructure project in one of the selected municipalities,
• “Corporate Development” Component goes along with the Investment Component in the selected municipality and foresees (among others) the improvement of management capacities at the corporate level of the public utility and the relevant departments of the municipality in order to ensure the sustainability of the project.

Taking into account 2014 flooding in Serbia, the aim of the project was to contribute, if appropriate, to the rehabilitation projects of concerned municipalities.SEEC provided following services within the assignment:

• The first part consisted in the assessment of the six shortlisted municipalities, including a detailed screening of their proposed project ideas, a need-assessment for capacity building of their public utilities, a confirmation of their commitment to engage in the eea approach and an analysis of their financing possibilities. In addition, the consequences of the 2014 flooding on the infrastructure in the six municipalities has been assessed. The detailed assessment gave a recommendation on the municipality to be selected as a partner for implementing the full-fledged project including the three components and on the municipalities to be selected for implementing the eea-approach only.
• Based on the outcomes of the first part, the second part of the assignment consisted in the preparation of a detailed Feasibility Study which defined the scope of the eea component in the selected municipalities as well as the scope of the infrastructure and the corporate development components of the project. Based on the Feasibility Study, SECO should decide on the implementation of the project in the selected municipalities. Energy saving calculator has been developed and Walk Through Audits have been performed in 54 buildings (schools, kindergartens and hospitals) with evaluation of investment costs, energy savings and CO2 emission reductions.