Barriers in implementation capacity and procedures

Specific barriers

Ways to cope with them

Responsibilities for financing, planning and EE are spread across different departments, therefore the exchange of information about planned financings and potential funding may suffer.

Political sensitivities, bureaucracy and poor information sharing impede implementation.

Cooperative planning and meetings of the cross-departmental teams in order to facilitate and improve planning and implementation, provided that all important actors take part.

As an example, in Judenburg, Austria, the “e5” team (e5 corresponds to the European Energy Award) is an interdisciplinary team from different departments, politics, ESCO, energy agency which works together on energy, climate and environment topics.

Municipalities do not have the financial capacities to employ energy referents, internal experts who are able to define the energy consumption patterns, detect lavish consumptions, leakages and define the investment priorities as a result, smaller municipalities usually invest only in limited, low scale EE projects eventually

Relevant national laws and government decrees should specify the tasks and methods of the energy advisors’ network and auditors on how they should implement behavioral change in public buildings.

The employment of energy managers at municipalities and other public institutions should be supported by relevant operational programmes among the eligible activities of the submitted project applications.

To promote at regional level the union of several small projects able to attract investors, and provide regional agencies that already exist for the technical support necessary for project implementation

Municipalities fall under the regulation of the Law on Public Procurement. The preparation, launching and evaluation of a procurement requires special knowledge, which is not available at smaller settlements.

Special programmes like ELENA can finance also the preparation and implementation of public procurement processes. Municipalities have to be informed and motivated to apply for these programmes.