Intelligent Energy Europe

ENERGY NEIGHBOURHOOD

Your energy challenge!

Intelligent Energy Europe

Page 3_ Summary

Page 4_ Keep up the challenge

Page 5 to 6_ Energy saving tips

Page 7_ 15 Experiences and Impressions from the countries

Page 16_ Impressive Results

The objective of Energy Neighbourhood project is to bring the ‘Kyoto protocol’ closer to the people into their living rooms - by organising a bet between the community and their citizens to save at least 8% of energy during 6 months heating period. The Energy Neighbourhood project took this idea from Belgium to eight other European Countries. Some eight to twelve households form a team, the so-called ‘Energy Neighbouhood’ and compete with other neighbourhoods in saving energy and winning the bet offered by the cities. If they save at least 8% os energy compared to the previous heating period, the municipality awards them a prize.Each team is coached by an ‘Energy Master’ who pulls the team together and provides the right incentives.

Welcome to Energy Neigbourhoods -Your Energy Challenge-!

For more information visit our website:

www.energyneighbourhoods.eu

The cities together with the project partners play the role of referee and supporter, by informing their citizens on how to save energy, organising get together and information events and ensuring that the team obide the rules.Almost 6000 households from Belgium, England, Ireland, Spain, Italy , Bulgaria, Sweden, France and Germany took up the Energy Neighbouhoods challenge to show that it is possible to have a large impact on energy use and climate protection while saving money. The resultd are inspiring: teams achieved an average energy saving of 10%. The winning team from Sweden managed an impressive 37% through simple and cost effective measures such as using energy saving lamps, disabling standby and changing their behaviour.

All participants of the Energy Neighbourhood project were supported by the national project coordinators, the municipalities and last but not least by the energy masters for succeeding the challenge to save 8% energy in 6 months. The experience shows: Everybody can save energy, it is easier than expected and often the main trick is to keep up the motivation.All countries carried out kick-off and interirn events, information evening, compiled energy saving tips and provided energy self checks as well as individual energy audits for the households with the goal to inform and motivate the participats. A web-based tool furthermore provided for each household an overview of the energy savings already achieved and functioned therefore as very important control instrument.In order to further involve citizens

Keep up the challenge!

into the callenge of climate protection at the local the project partners initiated or supported climate debates with citizen and local authorities. The climate debates function as a platform for cities and citizen to exchange questions and requests and to define together local solutions and ways for climate protection.

What have you learned from your participation at the Energy Neighbouhood project?

“We have a raised awareness and we have seen that small changes in habits at home do give results! We have not made any major changes in life style, we still have a comfortable home and life, it is really the small measures that count and the do not require big efforts.” (Team Ahlgren from Sweden, achieved energy savings of 37%).

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Energy Saving Tips

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What energy?

Try out an ECO monitor this month, book some time now by contacting your energy master.

Heat it right?

Programme your heating & hot water or get to grips with your storage heater controsl-Ideal temperatures © Hot water tank thermostat - 60 degrees© Living room temperature - 18-21 degrees© Thermostatic radiator valves vary but watch you are not heating unused rooms

Find out the warm up and cool down times of your home. In rooms you do not use very often, adjust the Thermostatic radiator controls to low . It is best to have the room heated to a very low temperature even if it is not in use in order to help minimize the risk of condensation

Saving Light?Low energy light bulbs contain only 5 milligrams of mercury, that is the same as the amount of ink on the top of the ball point pen, and so are safe to be used by all.

Heating help

Did you know?Wearing lots of layers with a cold external temperature can

still cause health problems by breathing in cold air. Use

the thermometer cards to help judge the correct

Want to do MORE?Save the environment, switch to a completely green tariff! Ecotricity,

Good Energy and Green Energy are the only companies that use 100% renewable sources. Have a look at the energy neighbourhoods websit

for information on the ‘greenest’ green tariffs, or ask your energy master of a copy of ‘how green is my lecky?

With the aim of demonstrating how significant savings can be made in both money and carbon through simple changes in behaviour, some energy tips weregiven for all competitors. Here are a few examples:

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Appliances that are plugged in, but not in use, are one of

the biggest causes of domestic fires and waste of energy!

Bye bye stand by

Device Standby (watts) On (watts)

Hi-Fi/Stereo 12 22TV 10 100Video recorder 1 13DVD player 7 12Digital TV set top player 5 6Computer and peripherals 15 130Computer Monitor 11 70Laptop 2 29Broadband 14 14Answering machine 3 3Battery Charger 2 14Mobile phone charger 1 5

Total 83 (watts) 418 (watts)

That’s £74.83 a year (10p per unit, standby on 24hrs, 365 days in a year =727 kwh units of electricity)

Food for thought

When pans become blackened from heavy use, they absorb heat, reducing efficiency. Nice shiny pans reflect heat up to the food.Induction cookers are faster and more energy-efficient than traditional cook tops. The pot itself is heated to the desired temperature rather than heating the stovetop and does not warm the air around it, resulting in added energy efficiency, water can be boiled in seconds in combination with magnetic cook ware.

Energy Saving Tips

Experiences and Impressions from the CountriesFlanders (Belgium)

The campaign took of with more than 4800 households in more than 400 energy neighbourhoods and 132 municipalities. Each of them was very keen on saving as much energy as possible. The participating people were very diverse.

There was a neighbourhood with only children, attending the energy master training as well. There were real sport-organisations, work colleagues, schools, youth organisations, and people with budget problems and of course real physical neighbourhoods.

Meetings with the energy masters were organized throughout the whole campaign period, with approximately three in each participating Province.

At these meetings, additional information about the campaign and energy saving topics were covered. Some about the calculation-method, others about financial support of the government for energy savings measurements, etcetera.These meetings were organised by the province in cooperation with BBL and Dialoog and Ecolife, our member organizations.Halfway trough the campaign, each municipality organised an interim event, where the interim results were provided and people had a drink and could meet other neighbourhoods.

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North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany)

Düsseldorf, Münster and Wuppertal have committed 3 Energy Neighbourhoods each to compete for the title of best ener-gy saver in Europe. The cities challenged their citizens with the slogan: Do you want to bet that you will save 8% energy in 6 months? At the same time they sup-ported and motivated their participants to achieve the best energy saving re-sults possible. The fun way to success: All neighborhoods won the bet and an aver-age saving of 13% could be achieved!

Interview with the mayor of Wuppertal ,Lorenz Bahr, who participated in the En-ergy Neighborhood project:

Why is Wuppertal participating in the project Energy Neighbourhoods Project?One of the goals of our urban develop-ment plan is climate protection. The idea of Energy Neighbourhoods is both con-vincing and simple, and since energy prices are also rising in Wuppertal, it is increasingly important to economise. The question is what can we as a city, and what can I personally, do to protect the envi-ronment and reduce my energy costs.

You, together with your family, partici-pated as a city representative for the project, of course non-competitive. How did you personally benefit from taking part in the contest?

It is up to everyone to save energy. The Energy Neighbourhood project gave me the opportunity to get involved myself, and as a representative of the city. During the course of the project I got more and more ambitious. By entering the energy consumption data on a weekly basis, we could directly see the saving effects of the measures that we implemented.

Do you have any energy saving tips you would like to share? Heating accounts for 70% per cent of pri-vate energy consumption; therefore it is easy to achieve sustainable success here, for example by turning down the heating at night. But fridges, freezers and laun-dry driers are also very power hungry. It is easy to do without a drier, but harder to live without a fridge or freezer. We, as a family, calculated that the cost of pur-chasing a new appliance of the highest energy efficiency class would be written off within 3-4 years. As a result, by next year we are going to start saving due to the new appliances that we purchased.

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Kalmar, Karlskrona and Oskarsham (Sweden)

Ten Energy Neighborhoods were recruited in the southeast of Sweden. The neighbourhoods were friends, recruited by an energy master who carefully selected the households to ensure a good result! Other neighbourhoods were colleagues who meet daily and encourage each other.

We also had two apartment buildings competing where almost all the tenants participated .The groups who met on regular basis in a natural arena achieved best energy savings results.

The most successful energy neighbourhood consisted of members that hadn’t saved energy before the competition, and therefore had a great potential to reduce their energy consumption. The neighbours with not that good a result were either not very interested in the bet or had really. We could see distinct differences between the different teams with the same house conditions. The changes of behaviour are fundamental measures in order to reduce the energy consumption. Small changes every day without reduction of comfort.

The role of the energy master was clear – he or she was the key to the success of the participating group. The energy mas-ter motivated and made the participants successful.

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Modena (Italy)

In most cases Neighbouhoods gathered around pre existing groups. In Formigine, Nonantola, Castellarano and Ravarino, “collective purchasing groups” -the so-called Gruppi di Acquisto Solidale (GAS) as well as a volunteer group of environmental guards- quickly responded as neighbourhoods. These were extremely effective channels, which guaranteed stability and enthusiasm during the 6-month competition. The tools were delivered and illustrated during operative meetings, some were organised on a

regional scale while others were organised at the municipal level.

The project used synergies with local actors (an interim technical meeting was held at a the local “Centro per il Risparmio Energetico”, a private HVAC systems showroom) and other projects too (a seminar was shared with IEE EnergyTrophy+ project as both initiatives shared the common of saving energy through behavioral measures).

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Rhône Alpes (France)

The energy neighbourhoods were all different: from rural villages to city center neighbourhoods, from houses to apartment. Some of the participant were already very aware of what to do and how to consume less energy, they made little % of saving but it is because they were already very good at savings energy in their day to day life. The energy masters were either one of these very aware participant, or participant very interested by the issue and who wanted to learn more or were willing to develop their knowledge and help other.

Some of the energy masters told us funny tricks on how to save energy: get invited to some friends for the week end! Candlelit dinners, very romantic, or only cold drink

allowed! (not recommended at long term!)The training tools had to be adapted to our data and energy used. It was more complicated to manage than if we had only take electricity and gas into account. The most difficult part was to check the result of each family, their reference data and their metered data: to make sure they had read the data correctly on their bills (French bills can be complicated to read!), to check their 9 months of reference, their converted data etc...

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Gloucestershire (United Kingdom)

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With our publicity we aimed to target a wide variety of households from families to single occupants and sheltered housing schemes. We achieved this and found that it didn’t necessarily matter what type of household was taking part in terms of achievement but how energy aware the participants were originally.

It was very hard to see the achievement of those who already had low energy consumption as they appeared to save very little. Those who were not energy conscious before the programme started, saved far more.We had a variety of energy masters taking up the challenge; backgrounds include a retired energy consultant to an energy conscious parish clerk.

All Energy Masters attended the training and were able to give quality advice to the participants however many felt the role was a lot to ask of one volunteer. Possibly, there should be a few people taking on different roles therefore spreading the responsibility.The concept of reading the meters was a very simple one and worked well until conversions between units needed to be done. It was hard for some people to read their meter as it was in a difficult place, it was suggested that every participant was given a wireless electricity monitor for ease of meeting readings.

The monitors also have a memory function so if verification of meter readings was needed you will be able to look back.Eight out of fourteen neighbourhoods completed the competition. Lack of computer knowledge, no email address and unrealistic interim results were the main cause of households loosing enthusiasm and not completing.

However for the neighbourhoods that completed the competition was enjoyable and great savings were made with the winning neighbourhood achieving an average saving of a 17% which is fantastic.

Tipperary (Ireland)

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Some 15 of their original 34 neighbourhoods finished the competition in Ireland. Website registration, data uploading and project completion proved difficult for the other neighbourhoods in Ireland. However the energy savings made in Ireland during this campaign were substantial with the winning neighbourhood conserving 17% of their energy and over 8 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

At the beginning of the competition, energy masters received a pack of 3 CFL bulbs irrespective of how well they do in the competition. Half way through this phase, in Jan 2009, an interim meeting took place, where current results were collected and analysed,

and feedback was given to participants as to how the project was progressing.

This was also an opportunity to feed back to our European partners and to address any issues, which have arisen.Progress was difficult in Ireland with approximately one third of the neighbourhoods which started finishing.

However, those that finishes saved lots of energy and this is good for the future of such community based projects in Ireland. The project was carried out in a fun way and all participants enjoyed making painless reductions in energy use.

School that won the competition with 17% savings. Its name is St.Ailbhe’s Secondary School, Tipperary Town.

Ribera County (Spain)

Neighbourhoods in Spain were composed of friends who got to know about the bet. The Energy Master was one of them. The Energy Masters were trained before the bet started.

They received a kit that included an energy master guide with information about their role in the project and the functioning of the web tool, a booklet with advice on how to save energy, an energy meter, a low consumption bulb, and other energy saving gadgets.Motivation has been one of the main problems. An on line service was set up to respond to participants inquires.

Moreover, contact was periodically kept by phone and e-mail. On the other hand, the problem with the web tool at the beginning of the bet made it more difficult to keep people involved.

Many Spanish groups dropped out because of their lack of interest on the bet. The results they obtained were not enough for them to go on collecting consumption data.

However,7 of the 19 starting groups finished the bet and enjoyed their participation. The overall results are very optimistic: almost 10% of energy saving and 12% of CO2 reduction was achieved.

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Plovdiv (Bulgaria)

In Bulgaria the bet was taken up by five Energy Neighbourhoods, with five families in each. The Neighbourhoods were formed in Plovdiv, Asenovgrad and Nova Zagora. They all took the challenge and gave their best to save energy without sacrificing their comfort. Guided by the highly motivated energy masters, all the families collected their energy bills from the previous year. After being trained on how to work with the web-based tool, everybody started entering their data.

The key to the success of the project in Bulgaria was to motivate the households to participate. During the National Award Ceremony each participating household received energy monitoring equipment – a kit that will record their energy consumption every six seconds. The data will be stored on the server forever. Furthermore, the energy masters were people highly dedicated to saving energy and sharing their knowledge.

They guided the households and provided them with informational materials and advice. The participants in the winning Bulgarian Neighbourhood were teachers who had participated in a previous European project, Active Learning. Having been motivated by the experience in Active Learning, the teachers executed the good practices in their homes and won!

Impressive Results

After six months promoting energy savings in households all the energy consumption data of the participants that was entered in the online tool was checked and evaluated by the project partners. In summer 2009 all cities and regions awarded their best Energy Neighbourhoods for their efforts and handed over small prizes, such as vouchers for organic supermarkets or energy saving tools. The project highlight was The European Award Ceremony in Brussels which gathered the best Energy Neighbourhoods from each country. More than 100 participants from 9 countries came together and were awarded for their energy savings achieved and had the possibility to exchange their experiences.And the results achieved by the nearly 6000 participating households are impressive:

9.150.000 kWh saved * 3320 t CO2 saved *10% average energy saving

Following the aim of this project, reducing energy consumption in households is a commitment of everybody. Analyzing results obtained by citizens participating, the project has proven that everybody can contribute to the goal of reducing energy consumption and getting active for climate protection in changing daily routines and behaviour.

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www.energyneighbourhoods.eu

Intelligent Energy Europe

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