CONGREGATE
Engaging citizens in local climate action
The beneficial results of the successfully completed Our Buildings (EUKI) project led to the laying of the foundations for a number of building initiatives aimed at making local communities buy-in to the renewal efforts of the building stock. The active participation of civil society and national stakeholders is an integral part of local climate action to contribute to improving conditions in the public building stock. This is also the focus of EnEffect's work on the CONGREGATE project, which was launched at the end of 2020.
The main objective of CONGREGATE is to promote local climate action in Central and South-Eastern Europe by providing support to local and national authorities in 5 countries (Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Croatia and the Czech Republic) for wider user engagement in two important areas of intervention – the energy efficiency of buildings and the introduction of energy cooperatives. The first part of the activities is related to a communication campaign in support of the renovation of the building stock, the aim of which is to actively involve representatives of local communities, authorities and businesses, in order to ensure a permanent and sustainable implementation of the planned results set in the long-term renovation strategies, adopted in each country.
The second part of the activities focuses on the development and presentation of appropriate technical and economic solutions for the creation of public-private energy cooperatives, supporting municipalities and indirectly local individual and business users. For example, technical and economic analyzes have been prepared in Bulgaria for the realization of energy cooperatives based on specific sites for the Municipality of Sofia, the Municipality of Burgas and the Municipality of Dobrich. In the same way, apart from Bulgaria, the local authorities in Greece and the Czech Republic will be supported and encouraged within the project.
Lead partner: Center for Energy Efficiency EnEffect (Bulgaria)
Partners: Center for the Study of Democracy (Bulgaria) https://csd.bg/bg/ ; Cluster for Promoting Nearly Zero Energy Buildings Pro-Nzeb (Romania) https://www.pro-nzeb.ro/about-us/ ; Institute of Zero Energy Buildings INZEB (Greece) https://inzeb.org/projects/congregate/ ; SEVEn (Czech Republic) http://www.svn.cz/en ; University of Zagreb (Croatia) https://www.grad.unizg.hr/en
Publications and outcomes:
Bulgarian pilots: Burgas, Dobrich, Sofia
"Solutions for Energy Cooperatives" - joint report for Bulgaria, Czech Republic and Greece
Analysis of opportunities for shared energy production in industrial and logistics park – Burgas.
The CONGREGATE project is supported by the European Climate Initiative (EUKI) of the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action on the basis of a decision by the German Bundestag. The EUKI competition for project ideas is implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH. It is the overarching goal of the EUKI to foster climate cooperation within the European Union (EU) in order to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. For more information, visit: www.euki.de
