Efficient Buildings Digital Days #2

Mediterranean wave for the transformation of our cities

The Efficient Buildings Community is proud to present its Digital Days. The online event aims at moving forward the discussion on the post-Covid-19 recovery, on sustainable transition and on the role of public buildings refurbishment.

In the last weeks, many Mediterranean Member States proposed their Recovery Plans to the European Commission and it is now crucial to understand how can the building sector contribute to this sustainable recovery, what are the instruments available to the public authorities and what resources and solutions can be provided by the financial institutions. Mediterranean public authorities have also a role to play in the transferring of these sustainable practices to the South shore of the Mediterranean Sea.

The Efficient Buildings Digital Days aims at debating these issues and, at the same time, at showcasing a set of tools for an effective planning of energy refurbishment in public buildings.

The Digital Days are organized in a series of 3 workshops on specific digital tools to build the capacity of local authorities across the whole Mediterranean basin.

Workshop #1 : 15 June 2021 – 10:00 – 12:00

Prioritize energy efficiency measures in public buildings: the PrioritEE toolbox

The capacity building workshop intends to train participants with a set of tools, developed by the Interreg MED PrioritEE modular project to help regional and local public authorities prioritize energy efficiency measures in public buildings.

During the workshop, participants will be introduced to:

• Technology analytical database which incorporates technical solutions to improve Energy Efficiency in Municipal Public Buildings split by end-use: lighting, space heating, space cooling, water heating and cooking.
• Decision Support Tool (DST) to prioritize Energy Efficiency measures divided among nine areas. The DST provides an overview of results ranked by savings, investment costs and return of investment for each building and building typology allowing also the evaluation of different combinations of Energy Efficiency measures. Users can either fill only basic input which will be supplemented with a list of assumptions from the toolbox’s database, or fill-in also advanced inputs for more accurate results.
• How-to Briefs, 7 guides for the implementation of selected best practices. These are short documents compiling in a transparent and easy to use manner useful information on: Stakeholder engagement, Sustainable Energy Action Plans, Innovative financing, Roof-top uses, Building envelope, Behavioural changes and Centralized energy management.
• Repository of Good Practices 
• which presents a list of strategic actions for sustainable development awareness and behavioural changes

The training session will focus on the testing of the decision support tool, so far available in English, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Greek and Croatian.

Workshop #2 : 16 June 2021 – 10:00 – 12:00

Finding the right incentive: SISMA SET tool for the bankability of refurbishment projects

The objective of the SISMA PLUS project is to help local authorities in the Mediterranean area overcome the challenges related to financing deep energy retrofitting projects of public buildings. The project is focused on optimising public funding for energy efficiency investment projects by the SET (Subsidy Evaluation Tool) package.

The SET package bundles the technical and financial assessment of energy efficiency measures (ECMs) with ready-to-use spreadsheets, guidelines and dedicated training documentation. It thus provides local authorities with a tool suitable for significantly scaling up energy retrofits of public buildings through effective bankable projects. With the SET model, public financing is minimised and tailored for each project with a new approach. The tool includes a dedicated Excel file to calculate the amount of public financing required for a sound energy retrofit investment to reach the minimum level of profitability required by the market.

The training session will start with a general presentation of the model followed by practical cases using the SET tool, considering 4 types of public buildings (schools, gyms, offices and health care structures) and based on the following major aspects that shall be addressed during the practical workshop:

• Data input
• Interventions and estimated investments
• Savings calculation options
• Financial calculation

The above mentioned excel file will be available before the workshop in en, it; sl; fr, pt el, es.

Workshop #3 : 17 June 2021 – 10:00 – 12:00

Energy efficiency in schools’ buildings: tools for energy performance analysis

The capacity building workshop, organized by ENEA, intends to train participants with a set of tools to simplify the energy renovation of public school buildings, for better management of energy performances and also for helping reduction of the their Environmental Footprint. The tools aim to raise the capacity of owners and managers of school buildings to better manage, plan and monitor the energy consumption in school buildings in the Mediterranean area.

During the workshop, participants will be introduced to different tools, developed in the context of two different Interreg MED projects.