ESCALATE local heating and cooling transition plans: Regional multipliers of capacity building and technical support to empower local administrations
Client European Commission (LIFE Program)
Duration September 2024 – August 2027
Background
In the EU, buildings consume more energy than any other sector. To drive forward the energy transition, the revised Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) now requires medium-sized cities with more than 45,000 inhabitants to draw up local heating and cooling plans. Many of these municipalities face the challenge of providing the technical and financial means to implement these plans. This is where ESCALATE comes in: The project will train and support regional energy agencies in the six EU member states of France, Greece, Italy, Croatia, Poland, and Slovenia so that they can act as expert consultants to guide municipalities in the development of efficient heating and cooling plans. These plans help to reduce the municipalities’ energy consumption and thus minimize their ecological footprint. In addition, energy cooperatives are being integrated into existing heating plans in two regions in Germany and Austria.
However, ESCALATE not only offers technical support in the form of training, a comprehensive training program and the development of a clear and comprehensible guide for the creation of heat plans. It also strengthens the exchange between municipalities, energy agencies and citizens’ initiatives in order to jointly pave the way to a climate-neutral future. ESCALATE thus contributes to the decarbonization of buildings, optimizes the use of energy and supports Europe in achieving its climate targets by 2050.
Goals and Results
To accelerate the transition of the building sector to clean energy, ESCALATE will create a training program, template and guide for the development of municipal heat plans and train six regional energy agencies to become effective heat planners (in Croatia, France, Greece, Italy, Poland and Slovenia). They will develop 12 pilot municipal heat plans with nearby municipalities, receiving technical support from the ESCALATE team and providing feedback on the training offer. All capacity building materials will be publicly available. The trained agencies will then train other energy agencies in their countries and the ESCALATE team will activate a wide network of stakeholders to disseminate the results, raise awareness of the capacity building offer and promote uptake across the EU. Two other countries (Austria and Germany) will be involved in policy dialog at local and national level and in assessing the role of energy cooperatives and citizens’ initiatives.
