Supporting Local Authorities to Plan Energy Efficiency in Public Buildings: From Local Needs to Regional Planning

Abstract

The support offered to local authorities in this work consisted of technical and economic training on the integration of energy efficiency measures as well as the development of tools (guide-lines, a decision support tool, databases and a visualization platform) that allow local authorities to prepare their building renovation plans. These tools are found very useful for local authorities, particularly in the case of Teruel province, characterised by many small municipalities whose local governments do not have the technical staff to undertake this type of planning. As a result of this work, an energy action plan was elaborated for the implementation of 96 energy efficiency measures in public buildings of Teruel province. The execution of this plan would allow energy savings of 1.3 MWh/year and 245 tonsCO2e /year of CO2 emission reduction, involving an investment of EUR 1.2 M. The close collaboration with public authorities made it possible to assess the strengths and weaknesses of using the developed tools. One of the barriers found is the availability of accurate building data (e.g., regarding envelope features) necessary for the decision support tool.