Green Twinning Project

EUROPEAN PROJECT GREEN TWINNING

“MUNICIPAL TWINNING IN ENERGY AND THE COVENANT OF MAYORS”

The GREEN-TWINNING project (IEE programme of the European Commission) focuses on the development and implementation of Sustainable Energy Action Plans (SEAPs). The elaboration of the SEAP and its submission to the Covenant of Mayors is a pre-requisite, but the main objective is to take municipalities one step further and train them on how to implement Sustainable Energy actions in their municipalities.

The project aims to enable municipalities with experience in SEAP development to guide/assist inexperienced municipalities in implementing the Covenant of Mayors initiative. The project proposes to form a “pool of inexperienced municipalities” from Greece, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania and Slovenia, as well as another group of “expert” municipalities, including 8 municipalities from Granada. These municipalities have been selected through the agreements signed between the Energy Agency of La Ribera and the Provincial Energy Agency of Granada on 16 October 2012, to collaborate in the European projects “Energy Neighbourhoods II” and “Green Twinning”.

or all these reasons, the Province of Granada is hosting these days a delegation of technicians and politicians from municipalities in Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia, and Poland to show them facilities that the municipalities of Granada can boast, such as the improvements in public lighting in Motril, the district heating with biomass in Huetor Tajar, the charging point for electric vehicles in La Zubia, the improvements in LED lighting in Cullar Vega, the preparation of the energy services contract in Guadix, the energy improvements and new wind farms in the municipality of Padul, and other facilities at the provincial level, the LED lighting improvements in Cullar Vega, the preparation of the energy services contract in Guadix, the energy improvements and new wind farms in the municipality of Padul, and other facilities at the provincial level that include biomass treatment plants, photovoltaic self-consumption plants, biogas recovery in different facilities, and buildings that incorporate new energy efficiency technologies. In this regard, special thanks are due to the Granada City Council (and the companies with which it works in some facilities, AGBAR, PRODIEL, CESPA), as well as the Granada companies “Construcciones Otero”, “BPS Group”, “Inmecal”, “Vivendio-Enerwind”, and “Aceites Sierra sur” for their collaboration and access to some of its facilities.

This July 2013, several visits to energy facilities in the province have been organised according to the interests shown by the Eastern European municipalities, and in this way the energy twinning agreements between the 8 municipalities of Granada and the corresponding European municipalities are also being signed.

Depending on the experience gained, the attainment of additional European funds and other factors, work is being done to see the feasibility of expanding this pilot experience to more municipalities in the province, which is currently going to promote the signing of the following energy twinning agreements:

Therefore, the first twinning signatures within the project will now begin in July 2013, according to the dates provided in the following table:

The main objective of the Green Twinning project in our region is that the staff of the Eastern European municipalities can learn more about the many, varied and interesting actions in the field of sustainable energy existing in the Province of Granada, but it is also an interesting opportunity for the participating municipalities of Granada to learn in the same way how the actions in the field of energy are carried out in Eastern Europe. Furthermore, by signing these twinning agreements to promote the actions of the European “Covenant of Mayors”, the different municipalities are already fulfilling several of the requirements to be included in this initiative.

In addition, new possibilities for collaboration between the municipalities participating in the project are opening up as there are different calls for European funds that are already being studied, where one of the most important criteria to be assessed is the capacity of the applicants to create collaboration networks within the European Union.

In the same way, the province of Granada has an increasingly greater potential for promoting tourism associated with knowledge of unique energy facilities. Our province has an important variety of this type of installations with different technologies, which, together with its natural and cultural heritage, make it a place of reference for delegations of experts from other countries. More and more delegations are requesting visits to various provincial facilities, and tourist spending is not concentrated solely in the provincial capital.

More information on the website of the Provincial Energy Agency of Granada, the website of the Provincial Council of Granada, or the official website of the project:

• www.apegr.org
• www.dipgra.es
• www.green-twinning.eu