CRESCO Award “Sustainable Cities” 2016- PALERMO

The City of Palermo was awarded a special prize instituted by Enel for ”Sustainable energy services Innovation in urban areas” for the year 2016. About 340 municipalities, in which live more than 12 million people,  took part to the competition,  divided in  various categories.

The Enel prize, (Enel is a company that distributes electricity throughout the country), is dedicated to the innovation of sustainable energy services in urban areas. The goal is to award the City who has undertaken the most interesting program of initiatives to integrate the intelligent use of energy and the development of services to improve the quality of life in urban areas. The City of Palermo won the Enel award 2016 for a project aimed to improve the energy performance of the municipal housing stock, making more efficient and rational energy consumption in buildings, and creating a positive environmental impact in terms of CO2 reduction.

Following the award, Enel proposed to the Sicilian Municipality the signing of a Memorandum that allows local administration to transform innovative projects in services for the territory and citizens using the technologies and know-how made available by the electricity company. The initiative is part of the European campaign “Sustainable living in cities”, launched last April by CSR Europe – the network promoted by the European Commission to implement the EU Agenda on Sustainability – to define effective models of multi-stakeholder partnerships for sustainable development of urban territories.

The awarded project has the  title “ROADMAPS FOR ENERGY“, funded by the European Union within the framework of Horizon 2020. This program is aimed at identifying the programs and goals for sustainable development and the reduction of CO2 emissions within  2050 in some European cities. The project has a duration of three years and involves mainly the construction of a study activity  and a coordinated planning between European cities, to define a project “portfolio” with particular reference to energy efficiency in buildings and sustainable mobility.

Other European cities participating in the project are: Eindhoven, Murcia, Tallinn, Forli, Istanbul, Newcastle, Sant Cugat and Palermo.

For the City of Palermo the mail office are involved in tha activities are:  Environment Office, Technology Innovation Office, Extramunicipal Funds Office, School Buildings Office and the Department of Education.

In particular, ENEL has awarded the City of Palermo for the idea of ​​building a “Strategy for Energy Efficiency”, contained in the Sustainable Energy Action Plan (approved by the European Commission in 2015), which covers both the municipal organization, both the energy efficiency of municipal buildings, and public training and awareness on the issues mentioned above. This can be summarized in the following steps

1. Establishment of an energy management system in compliance with UNI CEI EN ISO 50001, and the appointment of an Energy Manager;
2. Energy Catasto realization of municipal buildings and an energy audit campaign, with particular reference to school buildings;
3. Analysis of energy consumption of municipal housing and identification of energy and environmental performance indicators for the identification of energy efficiency priority
4. Energy audit realization in public buildings with particular reference to school ones
5. Realization of interventions of maintenance and of monitoring of energy consumption and of the energy produced by existing photovoltaic systems, aimed at maintaining the production of electrical energy from renewable sources
6. Energy efficiency of municipal buildings
7. Energy certification of municipal buildings and the realization of the first “plate energy”
8. Dissemination of information on energy efficiency projects in school buildings, such as “pilot projects” reproducible in other buildings
9. Realization of audiovisual and educational books produced for the implementation of training programs and promotion of renewable energies in the municipal schools
10. Dissemination among citizens of the city of Palermo and other European cities of the SEAP actions and drafting of a project portfolio for Palermo in 2050.