CO-ORDINATOR OF THE ACTIONCLER (Comité de Liaison Energies Renouvelables)Yannick Régnier (Project Manager)2B, rue Jules Ferry 93100 Montreuil FranceTel. +33 1 55 86 80 04yannick.regnier@cler.org - www.cler.org

TEXTSYannick Régnier (CLER), Andreas Witt (Solarthemen)and all partners of RES Champions League

GRAPHIC DESIGNAudrey Elbaz (www.elbazmangano.com)

RES CHAMPIONS LEAGUEA renewable energy competition between European cities and towns

“Play now!”

The sole responsibility for the content of this report lies with the authors. It does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the European Union. Neither the EACI nor the European Commission are responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.

01 - THE RES CHAMPIONS LEAGUE IN A NUTSHELLOnce upon a time : short stories of the first RES leagues 4RES Champions League - A European Network 5A straightforward ranking system 5

02 - AT THE HEART OF THE EUROPEAN MOVEMENT INVOLVING LOCAL AUTHORITIES

Kick-off event at the heart of the European movementinvolving local authorities 6

RES Champions League at Open Days 2009 7Rural energy matters at EUSEW 2011 7

03 - EUROPEAN EXCHANGES BETWEEN WILLING ACTORSFrom a mayor’s solar installation to sunny hectares 8Towards 100% RES communities in Brittany 9Hungarian municipalities visit Nuremberg 10

04 - EUROPEAN CHAMPIONS OF RENEWABLE ENERGYNo fair game without rules 12European championship celebration - Season 1 14SMALL CITIESPrato-allo-Stelvio : The town produces more than100%

of its heat and electricity needs with local renewables 16Schalkham : Nearly everbody has a solar thermal

system on their roof 17Hostetín : “Do-it-yourself” solar systems in and

around the village 17Nowa Deba : Holistic approach for an optimized

energy management 18Montdidier : Pilot town in energy saving

and renewables 19Bansko : 10 MW biomass heating plant 20Neckarsulm : “We owe it to the sun” 21MEDIUM CITIESOrosháza : The municipality sets a good

example on energy 22Litomerice : The solar garden of Bohemia 22Ulm : Sun power to the people 24LARGE CITIESCzestochowa : Energy policy as a priority in the

municipality’s development 25Grenoble : A city with positive energy 26Pilsner : One again on a sun throne 27European championship celebration - Season 2 28SMALL CITIESKronprinzenkoog : A tourist village produces

green energy 30

Dobbiaco : 6 renewable energy sources, even for neighbours 31

Nagypáli : Small but strong… and stronger every day! 31Brunico : Energy self-sufficient town for electricity

and heat 32Szczawnica : Health resort full of solar installations 32Chepelare : On its way to clean energy 33MEDIUM CITIESCrailsheim : Sun heats the housing estate in winter as well 34Jindrichiv Hradec : Bet on biomass secured by

a solar portfolio 34Chambéry : The French pioneer of solar energy

now thinks bigger 35LARGE CITIESReutlingen : Large city advancing to100% renewable

energy 36Bolzano : The city highlights sustainable energy

and transport 36Bydgoszcz : The city bet on a green energy mix 37

05 - NO EUROPEAN CONTEST WITHOUT NATIONAL LEAGUESBenefits of a league for local authorities 39Keys elements of a RES league 40The Solarbundesliga is still very popular after

more than ten years 42Uneven fight of whistles... and the Czech

league fitness 44The French RES league moves actors in territories ! 46The Polish “project fabric” woven in the RES

Champions League 48Winning with solar energy in Hungary 50The RES Champions League: an incubator for

sustainability champions in Bulgaria 52Legambiente identifies ‘‘100% renewable municipalities’’

in Italy 54Belgian municipalities and their citizens take up

a challenge: win the title of RES champion! 55

06 - PLAY NOW!Start a national league in your country 56Starting a RES league 57Basic prerequisites to start a RES League 58Making a league attractive for local authorities 59Organising a national championship celebration 60IT corner : the features of RES Champions League

website and database 61Contact 62

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h RES Champions League event during the first championship celebration in Dunkerque, May 2010

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The first national league for renewable energy was started in Germany in 2001: the “Solarbundesliga”, or National Solar League. Initially, the editors of a trade journal called Solarthemen (“solar topics”) only had a simple ranking system in mind for the solar power systems installed in cities, towns and villages. The editors had been asked to make a comparison of this type by some local councillors, and it met with a great deal of interest in towns and villages alike. Dozens of local authorities got involved very quickly. Within just a few months of the league taking off, the ranking process had turned into a fully blown contest, and the German environmental organisation Deutsche Umwelthilfe soon became its co-organiser. So it was that the title of “Champion of the National Solar League” came to be awarded for the first time in the summer of 2001. In the summer of 2011, around 2,100 local authorities took part in the German championships.

ONCE uPON A TImE : short stories of the first res leagues

THE RES CHAmPIONS LEAGuE IN A NuTSHELL

h Ola from the project team on the «blue roof» of CLER premises during the kick-off meeting, September 2008

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“Initially, it was important to talk with local authorities in person”, recalls Andreas Witt, editor-in-chief of Solarthemen. “The number of participants increased steadily in the years that followed.” A similar development occurred in the Czech Republic; now there are more than 1080 local authorities in its national solar league. The Czech organisation LEA (League of Ecological Alternatives) reports that it was helpful to get VIPs involved and step up its contact with the press and particular journalists, especially at the beginning. A league also gives this group of reporters the oppor-tunity to address topics such as renewables and climate protec-tion and present them in their media in a relatively simple way.

The French RES League, in contrast, has not seen such rapid growth in the beginning. As Yannick Régnier, the project co-ordi-nator at energy professionals network CLER, explains, for the first few years it was the municipal council that had to decide on participation in the French league. Regnier explains: “The underlying idea was to set up special relationships with mayors and councillors in order to encourage and support them setting an energy policy on their territory.” This aspect was handled in a

different way in Germany and the Czech Republic right from the start. In these countries, anyone who is able to make the requi-site figures seem plausible can register a local authority – an action group, a solar power association, a workmen’s association or even the mayor or chairman of the town council in some cases. The advantage of such a flexible rule is that no resolution needs to be passed by the municipal council regarding participation in the league. In that way the number of participants grows much faster and the competition gets even more interesting. Recently, CLER decided to duplicate the German and Czech strategies while keeping a special link with elected representatives.

When the RES Champions League was started as a project, organisations in other countries began to focus on building a league of their own concerning renewables. One motive that

Polish municipalities’ network PNEC had for doing this was to get a better overview of the solar and wood power systems ins-talled in Poland. Besides this, it also felt that such a league could be coupled well with the activities being conducted in a number of towns and cities to promote the use of renewable sources of energy. “However, it isn’t easy to persuade local authorities to par-ticipate if they fail to recognise the benefits they will get from a league immediately”, PNEC says. PNEC believes in steady work in such cases. The organisations behind a new league should simply come to terms with the fact that results cannot be expec-ted extremely quickly; this may depend on differing national men-talities as well.

Communication is one of the key issues in the leagues now in operation. “In France it’s a marvellous instrument”, Yannick Régnier says. “The league creates an informal network through which councils can be contacted easily – especially in small towns and villages.” It’s possible to find pioneers and front-runners by taking this route, he explains, while the league also acts as a platform for exchanging views and information on best practices. P

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ONCE uPON A TImE : short stories of the first res leagues

It’s like football and other types of sports: what counts is your own activity, but your drive and the fun factor both increase if you compare yourself to others – at a regional, national and international level. It’s the same in the renewables sector. The RES Champions League draws the national RES leagues and the local authorities involved in them together. Its purpose is to motivate people and encourage them to exchange views and information with each other beyond national borders.

Any organisation that wish to establish a RES league in its own country can draw on the experience gained in the course of the EU project so far and benefit from the opportunities that cur-rently exist.

A competition can’t exist without any rules. First and foremost, this applies to the scoring system used in the RES Champions League. The scoring system should be as simple as possible while always ensuring that fair conditions prevail. From the start of the RES Champions League in April 2009, partners agreed on basic rules that now apply to every national RES league. However, partner countries can adapt and complete the rules at a national level if they wish – whilst respecting the basic principles defined at European level.

Current indexThe ranking is based on a simple ratio: installed power (or area) per inhabitant.

CategoriesSeveral technologies for the production of energy from two renewable energy sources are eligible to the competition:• solar energy:

- solar thermal (heat) - solar photovoltaic (electricity)

• biomass energy: - collective heating systems and boilers (heat) - cogeneration units using biomass, including biogas

DivisionsEvery city, town and village can join the competition. A general ranking is provided for each category (solar, biomass). It includes all cities, towns and villages whatever their inhabitants’ number. In addition, three specific rankings are established based on the number of inhabitants according to the following divisions:• small cities: between 5,000 and 19,999 inhabitants• medium cities: 20,000 to 99,999 inhabitants• large cities: more than 100,000 inhabitants

RES CHAmPIONS LEAGuE : a european network

A STRAIGHTFORwARD ranking system

All the organisations participating in the RES Champions League are part of this network. They are all trying to increase the popularity of renewable sources of energy and want to moti-vate people and/or local authorities in their own countries. In other words, the network is also intended to promote the conti-nuous exchange of information.The RES Champions League website (www.res-league.eu) includes subordinate national pages used by participating countries. New countries can be involved in the RES Champions League and be included in the website with a relatively small amount of effort.

A number of days have to be planned for this each year, of course, but the effort is rewarded by some obvious benefits. People can profit from other’s experience. And in its own country the activities a local authority conducts gain more value in the general public’s view. Some local authorities might become more motivated by participating in a European contest. It’s certainly advantageous for new leagues to be able to establish a new ins-trument that provides information and PR services concerning renewables, and be able to do so very quickly.

The partners of the RES Champions League network are involved in developing the competition further, in generating new ideas and in shaping the rules that apply for it.

h Project team having a walk during the 3rd project meeting in Bad Oeynhausen, Germany

aDDitional notesIn order to prevent the competition from being killed by very large solar plants (especially when installed in small villages), the power of these is not fully counted. The following rule was agreed: “Not more than 40 points out of all PV installa-tions that are bigger than 250 kW but at least the points out of 250 kW per installation.”A combined solar index is calculated, providing bonus points when a balanced mix of solar photovoltaic and thermal ins-tallations is present in a municipality.The biomass ranking promotes the sustainable and efficient use of resources for energy-related purposes (strict criteria).

The rules are in constant evolution. They are discussed between partners of the RES Champions League and modi-fied only when a consensus is reached. The latest version of the detailed rules is permanently available on the RES Champions League website, in “Rules” section.Specific rules of national RES leagues are available in natio-nal pages of the website.

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The RES Champions League, renewable energy competi-tion among European cities, towns and villages, was officially launched during the Gala dinner of the joint annual rendezvous of Énergie-cités & Climate Alliance, on April 23rd 2009 in Brussels. The Gala dinner was hosted by the Minister for energy and envi-ronment of Brussels Capital region and took place at the Royal Museums of fine arts of Belgium.More than 300 mayors, elected representatives, technical staff and stakeholders involved together with municipalities attended the event.Ulrike Janssen, Executive Director of Climate Alliance, introduced the RES Champions League on behalf of the project team. Then she gave the floor to Camille Gira, executive board member of Climate Alliance. Camille Gira is the mayor of the municipality of Beckerich (2 300 inhabitants) in Luxembourg, a member of the Luxembourg parliament and winner of the European Solar Price 2008 in the category of local authorities. Thanks to the strong political will of his mayor, Bec-kerich covers 90% of electricity and 40% of heat demand by local renewable ener-gies and heads towards 100% renewable energy for electricity and heat by 2020:

During the Union Sustainable Energy Week (EUSEW 2009), two new national RES leagues were kicked-off in Bulgaria and Hun-gary. One more started in Poland two weeks later. These three new leagues joined three existing ones in Europe: the Solarbun-desliga in Germany, the Solarni Liga in Czech Republic, the Ligue EnR in France. At the same time, more than 300 cities were officially signing the Covenant of Mayors, an ambitious initiative from the European Commission that seeks to bring together the mayors of Europe’s most pioneering cities in a permanent network to exchange and apply good practices to improve their energy efficiency and pro-

kiCk-off event AT THE HEART OF THE EuROPEAN mOvEmENT INvOLvING LOCAL AuTHORITIES

THREE new leagues LAuNCHED DuRING EuSEw 2009 wHILST THE FIRST COvENANT CEREmONy TOOk PLACE

mote low-carbon business and economic development. The num-ber of signing local authorities already represented a success at the time and confirmed that local authorities are key players for a sustainable use of energy. The movement has not stopped growing until then and has now the terrific success everybody knows.For the little story, this first Covenant ceremony was broadcasted live on a large screen in Bansko town hall while the Bulgarian RES league was being launched on the 13th of April 2009. Key connections with this European movement on smart energy have been in place since this first moment.

AT THE HEART OF THE EuROPEAN mOvEmENT INvOLvING LOCAL AuTHORITIES

h A colourful mexican wave (Ola) involving participants to the Gala dinner of Energy cities & Climate Alliance annual rendezvous, April 2009

i Project team displays the moto «Play now!» with letters on football shirts

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the town is the perfect example of front-runners the RES Champions League aims at highlighting, promoting and awarding.Camille Gira made an inspiring speech explaining that people often identifies themselves to their city, town or village through their football team. Now they have another way to participate and support their city, town or village: their RES league! The Solarbundesliga has proven from its start in 2001 that a competition based on renewable energies (especially solar energy) can be very popular.

Then Ulrike Janssen and Camille Gira kicked-off the event. Two teams of project partners, identified with red and blue football shirts made at RES Champions League colours, entered the arena under a burst of applause. Once on stage, the teams dis-played the moto of the project “Play now!” with letters printed on their shirts – perfectly in line with the moto of the rendezvous “Play the game”.Ulrike Janssen and Yannick Régnier, coordinator of the RES Champions League, animated with project partners a football special: a huge and colourful Mexican wave (“ola”). All attendees of the Gala dinner were invited to participate. “Play the game”: everybody understood that words are nothing without action and played the game perfectly – this time just for fun!

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kiCk-off event AT THE HEART OF THE EuROPEAN mOvEmENT INvOLvING LOCAL AuTHORITIES

The seventh edition of the Open Days was organised in Brussels from 5 to 8 October 2009. It is one of the biggest events on the calendar of the EU institutions and proves that regions and cities have an active role to play in the European context. The Open Days are targeted at political representatives, decision makers, experts and practitioners and represent an ideal platform for capacity building, networking and exchange of experiences.Some weeks before the United Nations Climate Change Confe-rence in Copenhagen, the Open Days 2009 showcased several approaches and best practices in regional and local solutions to tackle the effects of climate change. Seminars dealt with regio-nal strategies towards low carbon economies, renewable ener-gies and ways of financing energy efficiency measures through EU cohesion policy.Yannick Régnier, coordinator of RES Champions League, spoke at the workshop «Intelligent Energy Europe Pro-gramme – cities and regions working towards a sustainable energy future» in front of a full room. This workshop aimed at supporting cities, regions and other local and regional stakeholders in their actions towards a low carbon future by presenting concrete tools, methodologies and experiences proven to be successful in Europe. It addressed the chal-lenges and opportunities for cities and regions when esta-blishing sustainable energy communities and energy action plans, the role of facilitators to initiate and support local and regional energy actions and the importance of mobilising citizens and local actors for achieving the energy targets.

As part of the EU Sustainable Energy Week 2011, RES Cham-pions League was a partner of the conference entitled « Rural energy matters ! The true energy potential of Europe’s rural areas » organised jointly by FREE initiative and Rurener on April 12th. Over 70 stakeholders attended and joined the lively debate with representatives of the European Commission, Euro-pean Parliament, upcoming Polish EU Presidency and Commit-tee of the Regions. The conference dealt with the current status of rural energy policies and the energy challenges that rural areas are facing. A debate was held on the role of rural areas in promoting sus-tainable energy and climate mitigation, ways to better integrate rural communities in these aforementioned EU efforts, and the available rural energy solutions. Eventually, participants were invited to be part of developing conclusions to ensure rural areas and the rural energy potential are not forgotten.

EUSEW 2011 was dedicated to energy efficiency. In its Energy Efficiency Plan 2011, the European Commission announced measures to boost energy efficiency by 2020. But it takes both urban and rural areas to achieve this. Now a disproportionate emphasis is made on cities and the EU must be more ambitious with regard to energy efficiency in rural areas. The potential for energy savings in rural commercial and domestic buildings is enormous and there are vast opportunities for decentralised and low carbon energy systems.

RES CHAmPIONS LEAGuE AT open Days 2009

rural energy mATTERS AT EuSEw 2011

h Participants of «Rural energy matters !» conference during EUSEW 2011, April 2011

h Roman Doubrava, DG Energy, spoke at «Rural energy matters !» conference about the involvement of rural communities in the Covenant of Mayors

h RES Champions league coordinator Yannick Régnier with representatives of Energy cities, Climate Alliance and the European Commission, April 2009P

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study travel to the Czech champions has inspired res fans from three states!Just 40 participants saw 25 installations in 8 municipalities during 2 days. One third of them came from Poland and some from Slovakia. A few figures to present the study travel, which the League of Ecological Alternatives (LEA) organized at the beginning of October 2009 in the south-east of the Czech Republic. The excursion was to serve as an incentive for people from municipalities, who can promote the development of solar and biomass energy and involve their municipalities in the national and the European RES league as well.Among participants, a “delegation” from the 750 km far-away Baltic, three people from three different municipality departments from Slupsk, a city with 100 000 inhabitants, were searching for an inspiration to make their intentions to equip new culture-, sport- and social service buildings in reconstructed (earlier e.g. industrial) areas in the inner city with RES technologies a reality. “You can already see some small solar installations for hot water production and biomass boilers in our country, but we have not yet started to build big solar parks, as the one we can see here,” levels her impression Ewa Weitmann-Rudewicz, the director of financial department. And she continues about RES situation in Poland: “Municipalities have some small subsidy money to support the utilization of RES. Voivodeships, which make their energy policies, have some funds as well, but we do not feel any stronger state support for RES. There is no political party, which would accept

FROm A mayor’s solar installation TO sunny heCtares

EuROPEAN EXCHANGES BETwEEN wILLING ACTORS

h LEA organisers and a part of Polish participants in front of the various solar installations of Veronica Eco-centre in Hostetin

RES among its priorities and we do not have the Greens here…“. However, thanks to PNEC (Polish Network Energy-Cities) from Krakow, the RES league is running well in Poland. Czech LEA, that organises the Czech Solar league for many years, supports PNEC with gaining experience. Therefore they had together involved Polish participants into the first European study tour. Some Slovak people came, even there is no RES league in their country yet. They were very optimistic, because thanks to new regulations in their country they are expecting a solar boom. They took a lot of notes on the way: in Rusava village (which was an absolute Czech solar champion for 4 years and is still the champion in a category of solar thermal installations) they saw a solar vacuum installation on a roof of the mayor’s house, collectors on a roof of a pub, which they won in the Solar League, another solar installations and heat pumps in the local school and the biggest solar thermal system in our country – 540 m2 at a swimming pool. Also solar parks, which were visited, capti-vated the participants’ attention: 2,25 MWp in Ostrozska Lhota village, 2,8 MWp in Dub-nany town, a new PV park with trackpoints not so far from there in Ratiskovice, even 3,5 MWp in Sudomerice village. The group also visited a municipality biomass heating plant in Hostetin, as well as a local pas-sive eco-centre with a PV and solar ther-mal roof- and wall-system. The “mosaic” was completed with PV power plants on a recultivated waste dump in the regional city Zlin and finally the low-energy house of the eco-centre with a solar thermal sys-tem and a pellets-heating power plant in Horka nad Moravou. No less captivating was the “sacred” project in Vilemov with solar thermal and PV modules on the roof of the Orthodox Academy and its director’s house. They installed also biomass boilers at the Orthodox Academy and at the muni-cipality house. Very inspiring information was given about the project, which intends to provide 50 roofs of church buildings in the Czech Republic with solar installations.Personal databases of all participants, who want to spread the RES idea around, have been enhanced by useful information, remarks and contacts. karel merhaut, LEA

h Not only big PV installations visited participants from three countries during the 1st Study Travel in the Czech Republic

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FROm A mayor’s solar installation TO sunny heCtares

On October 2010, the CLER organized a European study tour entitled «Towards 100% RES communities» in centre Brittany region, dedicated to elected persons and technical staff of local authorities and their partners. A delegation of 11 representatives of Bulgarian local authorities took part next to their 34 French counterparts.Jean-Luc Daubaire, deputy Mayor of Rennes in charge of energy and counsellor of the association of municipalities Rennes métro-pole, explained how Rennes Metropole committed to reduce his CO2 emissions from at least 20% by 2020 signing the Covenant of Mayors and encouraging his member municipalities to sign also. This approach resulted in the voluntary commitment and signature of 34 towns out of the 37 composing Rennes Metro-pole. The neighbour association of municipalities of the Val d’Ille and his 10 municipalities made the same commitment, encou-raged by Daniel Cueff, his president and mayor of Langouët.

These signatures are not only ink on paper. The member munici-palities of Rennes Metropole are implementing concrete actions. Thus, participants to the study tour visited the first elderly house provided with medical care that was awarded the low energy consumption BBC standard (50 kWhPE/m2/year): it is of biocli-matic design, made in wood and equipped with renewable ener-gies. In Langouët, the housing development of La Pelousière is composed of individual terraced houses and a small collec-tive building all at BBC standard and made in wood. The day after, participants walked in the street of Mordelles, a town that developed an important urban renewal programme and a new district well connected to the town centre. The result is a land consumption of only 25 ha for 1600 housings. Not surprising that these projects were led by a mayor who started his career as an agronomist: Bernard Poirier, also first deputy president of Rennes Metropole in charge of sustainable development, knows how valuable farmland is.Then visits led us to the association of municipalities of the Mené (7 villages, 6300 inhabitants), located 70 km to the west of

towarDs 100% res Communities IN BRITTANy

Rennes and enclosed in centre Brittany, away from main com-munication ways. To the origin of the project, a specific motivation acts as a connecting thread: the will to strengthen the local eco-nomy by diversifying activities (a single food processing industry unit employs 2000 persons), in particular around a strong axis on energy. Concretely, the objective is to take advantage of the energetic value of the territory (biomass from forests, agriculture and animals, wind, sun), that is to say to convert expenses for fossil fuel imports into local investments for the benefit not only of local actors in the field of energy, but also of farmers, forest owners and operators, local craft and small industry (buildings...).The territorial approach rules all projects: matching demand from local heating plants and offer from local wood owners, citizen investments in the wind park, environmental treatment of excess liquid manure from pig breeding via the collective methanisation unit Géotexia, allowing moreover the production of renewable

electricity, rape-seed oil fuel cooperative aiming also to gua-rantee the origin of feed for the breeding (pigs are fed with oil cake which is a local and economic by-product issued from the rape-seed oil production process).Dominique Rocaboy, farmer and president of the CUMA Géo-texia (a CUMA is a cooperative for the use of agricultural equip-ments) and Jacky Aignel, mayor of Saint-Gouéno, vice-president in charge of the environment of the association of municipali-ties and initiator of the CUMA Menergol, show their involvement together with other local farmers in favour of the increase of energy autonomy of their territory, as a local and alternative deve-lopment project to an extreme centralisation (energy, agriculture) and the anticipation of social and environmental crisis expected due to the growing scarcity of fossil fuels.The projects in the Mené are inspired from travels made in Ger-many, Austria and northern countries: may this travel in centre Brittany inspire now all participants from France and Bulgaria that took part to it ! yannick Regnier, CLER

h The group in front of the rural ecodistrict of La Pelousière in Langouët, member town of the Communauté de comune du Val d’Ille

h Participants walk around the streets of Mordelles, discovering the smart urban planning strategy of the town

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hungarian muniCipalities vISIT THE REGION OF NuREmBERGThe cities of Fürth, Nuremberg and Erlangen were the destina-tion of a study travel of 25 representatives from Hungarian muni-cipalities, amongst which the winners of the 2010 Hungarian RES league, in late April 2011.The first station was the the “Solarcity Fürth”, where the “Solar Appointee” Johann Gerdenitsch fosters the installation of PV installations for many years now which lead to a steady rise of installations. Today, 12.3 MW are installed on Fürth’s roofs. One of the most impressing projects of Fürth is a 1 MW PV installa-tion on a waste disposal site. In 2003, 350 module tables were mounted on the slope. The financing of the facility demanded a total investment of approx. 4.7 M€. Working within the framework of the citizen investment model, the Sparkasse Fürth took charge of the external financing and the acquisition of investors. The necessary shareholder’s capital amounted to around 1.5 M€ 500.000 Euros were covered by the financial engagement of the city of Fürth and the rest was secured from around 120 citizens

within 2 months after the start of construction of the facility. Rural energy production also plays a role in Fürth: this was shown a visit at a cattle-farm in a city district, where a combined heat and power biogas plant is run since 2004. A PV plant on the roofs of the cowsheds delivers additional electrical energy. The Lord Mayor of Fürth, Dr. Thomas Jung, joined and welcomed the guests here and indicated the importance of renewable energies for the development of the city of Fürth.The building society of the city of Fürth presented the energetic renovation of a 16-storey building (built in 1965) with 75 apart-ments and the installation of Fürth’s largest solar thermal facility on the building in 2010. Energy efficiency measures alone lead to energy savings of 60% of the thermal energy. The solar ther-mal installation of 85m² leads to additional 11 % savings, also because it helps to reduce the peak load and thus significantly reduce the times when the back-up oil burner needs to be acti-

vated. The tenants pay higher base rents but due to lower energy costs, the total costs decreased slightly.

At a visit at the company Sunline-Solar AG, the group learnt about the local economic opportunities of solar energy. The last station of the day was the company IBA, which developed and installed a solar thermal system of their company’s offices roof right in the city center in order to cool down the rooms in the summer time. Whereas the company had no commercial interest (solar energy is not amongst the business branches of the com-pany) with this facility, the technical know-how gathered with this project is valuable for their engineering work.

In the evening a representative from the city of Erlangen explai-ned about the city’s programmes to motivate citizens to install RES and support in the different measures for energy savings and efficiency. The success of Erlangen in the German solar

league builds on the initiative of many pri-vate persons and institutions. Due to the initiative of a local association, a solar roof is to be found on every school in the city.

The second day of the study tour focussed on the city of Nuremberg. The head of department “Municipal Energy Manage-ment” highlighted the high potential for energy savings in the public buildings by influencing the user’s behaviour. He explai-ned the “Keep Energy in Mind” programme at Nuremberg’s schools and pointed out that the caretakers are in a key position for the success of such energy saving programmes at schools. They should be involved not only during the implementa-tion of the programmes but also during the elaboration, as they can give essential technical hints. Also, the controlling of the energy use at public buildings brought reduced consumption by 5% correspon-ding to monetary savings of 800.000

Euro. The German Association of Cities and Towns estimates a potential reduction of 15% through controlling.

Then the combined heat and power (CHP) plant of the wastewa-ter treatment plant of Nuremberg was visited. It contributes to the thermal energy necessary for the fermentation process and provides one third of the electrical energy of the treatment plant. The first module runs since 2003 and was extended to a total 3,7 MW this year by a second module in order to use peak supply of biogas. Another CHP plant (about 2 MW) is installed in the indoor swimming pool of a district of Nuremberg. The CHP is run by a contracting company, which sells the produced energy to the public pool operator. Fuel is rap-seed oil with provenance from close farms. uwe Friedel, DuH

EuROPEAN EXCHANGES BETwEEN wILLING ACTORS

h Participants to the German-Hungarian study tour in front of the «solar hill» in Fürth

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h   Participants to the French study tour next to the rape-seed oil fuel production cooperative called Menergol

i Study tour in France: Bulgarian and French representatives in front of a wind park in Trébry, October 2010

h (TOP) Fortunately a responsible engineer of the CHP plant in the wastewater treatment plant of Nuremberg spoke fluently Hungarian and could explain technical details in depths.

h    (BOTTOM) The German study tour participants learn about the local solar industry at the Sunline-Solar AG

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Very soon after the RES Champions League started, dramatic dif-ferences in the development of renewable energies in partner’s countries were confirmed by the first results given by the ranking system (which was not quite a surprise). For example, almost only German cities and towns were in top 100 in solar photovol-taic category. For this reason, partners agreed unanimously that champions should not be awarded only on the ground of points: a two round process including national semi-finals and a European final was set up.

semi-final at national levelIn every country, the semi-final candidates are selected by the organization responsible for the national league among best-ranked municipalities participating to the solar and/or biomass leagues.A specific questionnaire was designed at European level: it is addressed to every semi-final candidate in all participa-ting countries. The objective of the questionnaire is to get a wide overview of installations, actions and policies related to renewable energy and energy saving issues. The questionnaire includes several sections in which candidates are invited to pro-vide detailed information: • Personal implication of key representatives of the city, town or

village• Public buildings and services• Public policy• Information and communication towards local actors• Territorial dynamic In every country, the semi-final winners are determined by the

organization responsible for the national league, usually with the participation of a national jury, upon the evaluation of filled ques-tionnaires and any additional data provided by municipalities.In each national league, semi-finals phase results in the selection of one city, town or village for the final in every European division:General ranking: all sizes• Small cities: from 5.000 to 19.999 inhabitants• Medium cities: from 20.000 to 99.999 inhabitants• Large cities: more than 100.000 inhabitants

res Champions league final at european levelThe finalists (e.g. semi-final winners in every country) then com-pete against each other. A European jury composed of energy experts, environmental NGOs, municipalities’ associations and specialized journalists analyzes thoroughly the dossiers of fina-lists. Then a two-round voting process is implemented: each member of the jury gives 3 points, 2 points and 1 points respec-tively to his first, second and third choices. The first round aims at selecting the three awarded municipalities, the second one at establishing a podium (1st, 2nd and 3rd place) in every European division. Up to 2011, seven different nations were represented and com-peted at the final stage of the competition in different divisions (more countries are now taking part). As a consequence of the semi-final rules, only one city, town or village from each country may be placed on the same podium. Therefore, municipalities from every country in the RES Champions League have the opportunity to get onto the podium, despite the dramatic diffe-rences in national contexts for RES (wealth, support systems…).

NO fair game wITHOuT rules

EuROPEAN CHAmPIONS OF RENEwABLE ENERGy

h Project teams ready to enter the arena of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts during the kick-off event, April 2009

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NO fair game wITHOuT rules

h Champions of French 2010 season glorified in the position of famous statues, January 2010

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The championship celebration of the RES Champions League took place on Wednesday May 19th in Dunkerque, during the 6th European conference of sustainable cities and towns. Prato-allo-Stelvio (Italy) won the Gold medal in the general ranking. German cities of Neckarsulm and Ulm took the Gold medals respectively in the divisions «20,000 to 100,000 inhabitants» and «more than 100,000 inhabitants». Last but not least, the town of Nowa Deba created the surprise by giving the last Gold medal (division «5,000 to 20,000 inhabitants) to Poland. Winners were awarded cups and medals, just like in football Champions League!The first season of the RES Champions League gathered 2 600 European local authorities and 50 millions inhabitants from seven countries: Germany, Bulgaria, France, Hungary, Italy, Poland and the Czech republic.To announce the championship celebration to the participants to

the conference, the RES Champions League team organised a happening: two teams with football shirts of red and blue colours entered the agora under a blaring of whistles, following the master of ceremony acting as the referee. Then players simulated a short warm-up, spread all over Dunkerque convention centre agora and among surprised and smiling conference participants. Eventually the referee blew the kick-off of the ceremony and RES Cham-pions League partners brought the audience to the meeting point. At the same time, the football Champions League anthem was played loud and acted as a Pavlov bell to all football fans in the hall, who eventually joined the event.After the Ola held during the kick-off of the action In Brussels, the RES Champions League proposed again a good piece of fun justifying once more our motto: “Play the game, play now!”yannick Régnier, CLER

RES CHAmPIONS LEAGuE PLAyERS TuRNED Dunkerque agora into an arena!

h Municipality representatives awarded during the 1st ceremony in Dunkerque, May 2010

EuROPEAN CHAmPIONS OF RENEwABLE ENERGy

2010 european ChampionsDivision european Champions

general ranking : ALL SIZES

1st : prato-allo-stelvio (ITALY) 2nd : sChalkham (GERMANY) / 3rd : hostetín (CZECH REPUBLIC)

small Cities : FROM 5,000 TO 19,999 INH.

1st : nowa Deba (POLAND) 2nd : bansko (BULGARIA) / 3rd : montDiDier (FRANCE)

meDium Cities : FROM 20,000 TO 99,999 INH.

1st : neCkarsulm (GERMANY) 2nd : orosháza (HUNGARY) / 3rd : litomeriCe (CZECH REPUBLIC)

large Cities : MORE THAN 100,000 INH

1st : ulm (GERMANY) / 2nd : grenoble (FRANCE) 3rd EX-AEQUO : CzestoChowa (POLAND) & plzen (CZECH REPUBLIC)

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RES CHAmPIONS LEAGuE PLAyERS TuRNED Dunkerque agora into an arena!

h Winners of RES Champions League awarded during season 1 in Dunkerque, May 2010

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prato allo stelvio distinguishes itself not only thanks to the mix of renewable energies, made of 6 different technologies, but also thanks to the local distribution network run by a local cooperative that makes the town, due to historical reasons, an almost autonomous muni-cipality in terms of energy production and distribution.The development of the grid started after the First World War, when the community of Prato allo Stelvio was going through a severe economic crisis and at the same time was forced to pay very high costs for the electricity coming from the nearby com-munities. Six willing men established the energy company (the Power Cooperative E-Weerk) in 1926 and built the first hydroe-lectric power plant partly funded by the inhabitants (through the purchase of shares) and partly financed by loans. Next year, the cooperative was already distributing about 35 MWh of energy, figure that increased to 350 MWh in 1951, when the coopera-

PRATO-ALLO-STELVIO (3,375 INHAB., ITALy)

THE TOwN PRODuCES more 100% OF ITS HEAT AND ELECTRICITy NEEDS with loCal renewables

tive members were 81 and the customers 381 (approximately 600 in 1975).Today, an amount of energy, which is higher than real needs of the local residents in terms of electrical and thermal (hea-ting and hot water) requirements, is supplied by two biomass heating plants with a total output of 1.4 MW through a 21 km long network (75% of buildings are connected), five combined heat and power units supplied with biogas and hybrid biogas/biomass fuel with a total output of 1.4 MW, four hydroelectric plants with a total output of 3.6 MW, hundreds of solar systems installed on the roofs (1,100 m2 of solar thermal collectors and 3 MW powered by solar panels) and wind turbines with a total output of 2.6 MW. A biogas production unit uses manure, liquid manure and other organic waste from 50 farmers and produces 600.000 cubic meters a year.The ‘lucky’ residents of this small town benefit from these tech-nologies on at least two sides: they preserve the clean air of this mountain region and they get less expensive bills of approxima-tely 30-40%.Due to the growing demand for energy, the network was progressively developed as the production of energy from renewable sources increased. Therefore, Prato allo Stelvio now gets a network that can efficiently manage the various renewable sources so much so that in 2003 it prevented the small towns from the Province of Bolzano from being affected by the nation-wide black out. The system, indeed, ensured the continuous energy supply to all the users.Today the cooperative has over 900 members and, apart from providing energy to over 90% of the community users, inject the surplus into the network. katiuscia Eroe

Schalkham is a small town in Bavaria. It’s situated in one of the poorest regions there. But Schalkham is really a solar town. The people of Schalkham have installed solar thermal systems with nearly 1,6 square meter per inhabitant. This is the highest num-ber in Germany. It was the former mayor who initiated this deve-lopment. He was the one who asked the people to install solar thermal systems. And he proposed to buy the collectors through

a bulk order as a community, so that inhabitants could get it much cheaper. The citizens worked together to install the systems on the roofs. Only one professional installer helped them. In the recent years, the people also invested in photovoltaic systems. Now in average every of the 869 citizens has installed 2,4 kW or together more than 2,1 MW. Andreas witt, Solarthemen

SCHALkHAM (862 INHAB., GERmANy):

NEARLy everboDy has a solar thermal system ON THEIR ROOF

h Biogas installation using organic waste from 50 farmers and supplying cogeneration units in Prato-allo-Stevio, Italy

EuROPEAN CHAmPIONS OF RENEwABLE ENERGy GENERAL RANTING

i In Schalkham nearly everbody has a solar thermal system on the roof of his house

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the “sun for the white Carpathians” programme (1997-2001) was about installation of solar systems for heating water. the main objective was to install larger amount of solar energy systems, which would attract people’s attention and convince them of the possibilities and advantages of using solar heating. the programme was one of the first such programmes to promote the use of renewable energy from the sun in the Czech republic.

history, funDing anD use teChnologyThe programme started in 1997, when the first system with a collector with an area of 6 m2 and a reservoir of 700 litres were installed in July. An important feature of the programme was the use of a modular solar system, in the installation of which the future user was always involved. The maintenance of the system also called for his active participation. The programme addressed mainly people, who had traditionally partially substituted the investment costs by inserting their own work and craftsmanship.The achievement was connected with awareness-raising and financial support of the model installations. More than 60 mayors from nearby villages were addressed with an offer of solar installa-tions on buildings serving the public interest. Until 2001, solar sys-tems were installed on 45 buildings, most of them public buildings. The programme was terminated in 2001 due to development of commercial installations and offers of state financial support, which could not be obtained for do-it-yourself (DIY) systems.

lower Capital anD operating Costs The low price was an advantage of the modular system. It cost less than half the price of comparably efficient systems, which were then available on the Czech market. Simple return on investment without the subsidy would be about six years. Instal-lation costs were actually lower thanks to the possibility to obtain grants from foundations. Cost of water heating had decreased

very much after system installation due to the substitution of electricity consumption.

eDuCation anD awarenessA demonstration effect and a momentum for further use of solar energy were the aim of the project. One programme module was meant for direct training of craftsmen, who were then able to carry out further assembling. For the needs of users and crafts-men, a brochure on the installation and maintenance of DIY solar systems has been prepared and published. Later, the ecologi-cal institute Veronica translated assembly manual by Austrian authors. The educational part of the project went beyond the practical part of the installation. Solar technicians, engineers and architects, but also students of secondary industrial schools and technical universities, were essentially the programme’s target groups. For educational activities aimed at specialists, Veronica used the Solar Net platform of Czech-Austrian solar projects.Today, two large solar thermal installations are visible on the roof of a juicing plant (36 m2, 2001) – producing organic juice from traditional White Carpathians apple varieties – and on the eco-centre building wall (22 m2, 2008). A photovoltaic installation of 9 kW was also added on the eco-centre. These systems repre-sent a good illustration of local know-how: many excursions and also important state visits are welcomed (e.g. Prince Charles in March 2010) by the NGO Veronica, which deals with the spread of a large spectrum of eco-information.

If today in municipalities around Hostetín you can see more - even professional - solar installations, it is not only thanks to improved conditions for solar energy utilisation, for example through state subsidies, and offers of companies in the Czech market, but cer-tainly also thanks to the work of people around Hostetín Eco-centre, who sowed ‘the first seeds of’ interest years ago. LEA

HOSTETíN (244 INHAB., CzECH REPuBLIC)

“Do-it-yourself” solar systems IN AND AROuND THE vILLAGE

h  Eco-centre VERONICA in Hostetin (built in passive standard), which spreads information about RES utilization around the whole Czech Republic

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nowa Deba municipality, in pursue of a cheaper heating system for communal flats, decided to use its inborn advantage – large forest complexes and steadily increa-sing acreage of fallow lands. after some discussions and considerations, a global solution considering at the same time the issues of heat production, fuel supply and sludge treatment has been chosen.

These were the initial foundations to the project, which has fina-lized with the construction of an 8 MW wooden chips-fired boiler house, connected with the district heating system of Nowa Dęba. The project also included the extension of the heating network to supply eventually 42 public buildings, health care centre, police station, social care house, sport centre, 8 private houses, bakery, buildings of municipal management utility. Recently, the culture centre and 2 blocks of flats have also been connected to the network.

But the holistic conception of the project also includes a willow biomass production to supply the boiler and the associated fuel preparation plant. Converted sludge from the municipal sewage treatment plant is used for the fertilization of the plantation. This project is the first one in Poland, which connects dedicated bio-mass production, usage of green wastes and use of the sludge from a local sewage treatment facility as a fertilizer. Within the next 2-3 years, the willow grown on the plantations will become the main fuel used in the boiler.

In addition to this biomass heating plant that covers 60% of city heat demand, Nowa Deba has also the following installations:- a cogeneration plant (combustion of coal and biomass) produ-cing 1,5 MW electricity and 8,8 MW heat.- solar panels for a total of 234 m2 (in private houses, restaurant and sport centre).The municipality is actively involved into the implementation of several European projects, recently in: - MODEL (the Municipal Energy Programme 2010-2013 was prepared and accepted by the city council),- Energy certificates for public buildings (energy audits in 3 public buildings, energy certificates and labels),- EURONET 50/50 (energy saving in schools with the use of 50/50 methodology to the European network of educational centres).

The Municipal Management Utility, which is an administrator of some of pubic buildings, developed a “Thermomodernisation Plan” and it is two years since investments in retrofitting were started. Moreover, Nowa Deba is active in communication and promotion, organizes Municipal Energy Days for citizens, parti-cipates in RES and EE conferences – sharing the municipality experience in the field of production and supply of biomass, plan-ting the energy willow (on the area of municipality the plantation of over 80 ha is located), exploitation of biomass boilers. The city also hosts the representatives of local authorities from Ukraine, Slovakia, Armenia and Kirghizistan. PNEC

NOWA DEBA (11,900 INHAB., POLAND)

holistiC approaCh FOR AN OPTImIzED ENERGy mANAGEmENT

EuROPEAN CHAmPIONS OF RENEwABLE ENERGy SMALL CITIES

h City heating plant of 8 MW using wooden chips in Nowa Deba

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montdidier (6 500 inhabitants, located in the northern part of france) works with his municipal energy utility to implement a local policy of energy saving and deve-lopment of renewable energies. ten years ago, the uti-lity (then supplying 3000 clients) wondered about his future existence as a public service, in the context of the competition to be introduced by the liberalization of the electricity market in europe.The town then launched the operation «Pilot town in energy saving», supported by a framework agreement between the uti-lity, the town of Montdidier, the Picardie region and the ADEME (national energy saving agency). The town aims at covering more than half of his energy consumption by local renewable energies by 2015 and targets a reduction by four of greenhouse gases emissions by 2050.The main steps of the sustainable energy programme of Mont-didier show a clear growing momentum in the consideration of the energy issue:

- 2003 : study on the energy saving potential and start of the wind project.- 2004 : design and sizing of a theoretical programme and quan-tification of the impacts of this programme. Decision to start the operation «Pilot town». Signature of the framework agreement between the utility, the town, the region and the ADEME. Start of the engineering support mission.- 2005 : start of a rural energy support service shared with neighbourhood municipalities and a planned operation of buil-ding retrofits on the territory of the association of municipalities. Implementation of an energy advice service.- 2006 : study for the construction of a district heating network supplied by a wood heating plant.- 2007 : call for offers for the construction and operation of the heating network.- 2008 : obtaining a permit for the construction of 4 wind tur-bines ; construction of the heating network ; construction of the photovoltaic installation of the Prieuré ; vote during a town council meeting of a budget for the retrofit of all schools ; start up of the heating network supplied by a wood heating plant - a PV plant is installed on the roof of the heating plant.- 2009 : call for offers for the global retrofit of schools and the

MONTDIDIER (6,012 INHAB., FRANCE)

pilot town in energy saving anD renewables

construction of a wind park, first thermal retrofit on the Prieuré school.- 2010 : start up of the wind park, thermal retrofit on Victor Hugo school, study for the creation of a biogas unit, brainstorming on energy plus buildings, preliminary work on the creation of an ecodistrict.

The leading project of the municipality, the wind park of «moulin à cheval», took seven years to come out of earth: the park is in operation since spring 2010. The consumption of electricity in Montdidier is 19 GWh/year. The wind production covers half of the needs. The wind park is composed of 4 wind turbines of 2 MW each. «The creation of this wind park, the first public wind project directly led by a municipality in France, shows that local authorities are able to consider the energy issue on the whole and make it a key axis of their local economic development», say the town and the utility of Montdidier.

The profits issued from the wind park operation will be allocated the following way: - 1/3, in priority, dedicated to compensatory measures associa-ted to the removal of visible electricity cables located in the peri-meter of historical monuments, then to the improvement of the quality of medium and low voltage distribution grid,- 1/3 to the financing of the operation «Montdidier, pilot town in energy saving», through subsidies to efficient heating and hot water production installations, to the development of communi-cation tools focussed on energy saving and to renewable energy production installations.- 1/3 to the town of Montdidier for energy savings and thermal retrofits of public buildings, together with the implementation of other actions in the field of sustainable development.

The operation «Pilot town in energy saving» represents an oppor-tunity of diversification and promotion of the public service provi-ded by the utility, thanks to local and personalised services. The utility plays a key role for its clients facing energy challenges, together with his traditional role of local energy distributor and provider. The territorial scale is a real advantage to initiate this kind of operations: the local acknowledgement of the utility and the simplicity of exchanges between the different departments, elected persons of the town and the utility are one of the suc-cess factors of the programme. yannick Régnier, CLER - October 2010

h Wind park of the «moulin à cheval» owned by the public utility of the town of Montdidier

$ Wood district heating plant equipped with photovoltaic panels

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bansko is a resort town in the pirin mountains in the southeast part of bulgaria. the town is a fascinating symbiosis of history, tradition and culture. its terri-tory comes up to 50 000 hectares. the 15 000 hectares (approximately 33%) of area of the municipality bansko are part of national park ‘pirin’. by an order of unesCo, national park ‘pirin’ is included in the Convention for protection of the world natural heritage. the summer is brief and fresh and the winter is snowy, mild and conti-nuous. the heating season is not less than 9 months.

Bansko hosts a ten-megawatt wood-chip-burning plant. This project was implemented jointly by the municipality of Bansko and the investor “Bul Eco Energy” LTD. Investment costs were over 5 000 000 BGN (over 2 500 000 Euros). The project is financed through the BEERECL credit line of European Bank

for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). Bulgarian Credit Rating Agency (BACR) assigns credit rating PFR 3 [BBB+] (positive trend) to the Bul Eko Heat power station project. This is a very high rate.

Project manager of the site is Ivan Hinovsky. He is presently the director of business development for Pro EcoEner-gia Ltd. The equipment was produced by Polytechnik GmbH Austria.The plant is supplied with wood waste from logging in Forestry Belitsa Dobri-nishte, Velingrad and Razlog (all are mem-bers of State Forestry Agency) and waste material from companies in the furniture industry.

Bul Eco Energy built a 5.5 km long hea-ting distribution network. The heating plant supplies heat to 25 private buildings,

including hotels, residences and a church; as well as 20 muni-cipal buildings, including schools, a kindergarten, the Vapsarov Museum and the hospital. The economic impact of the biomass heating plant in Bansko results in over 50% reduction in energy bills of the heated buil-dings. The positive environmental impacts of the project are clearly visible with the emissions saved: over 4 500 t CH2/year, over 1 300 t CH4/ year, over 1 700 t NOx/ year, over 1 600 t SO2/ year.At a ceremony held in Bansko in February 2009 for the esta-blishment of the Bulgarian RES League, Banksko’s Mayor Alek-sandar Kravarov said: “We are proud of what has been achieved so far in our city. We are pleased that there may be other cities that might want to learn from our example. At the same time, we have an opportunity to learn from some of the best practices in Europe as a result of this competition.” ABEA

BANSkO (8,511 INHAB., BuLGARIA)

10 mw biomass heating plant

EuROPEAN CHAmPIONS OF RENEwABLE ENERGy SMALL CITIES

h Biomass boiler in Bansko, leader town of the Bulgarian RES League

iVisit of the wood district heating plant in Bansko during the kick-off of the Bulgarian RES league

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neckarsulm is not a tranquil climate health resort: it hosts the audi head office. the automaker is the domi-nant employer in the town of neckarsulm with its 27 000 inhabitants. the historic downtown and rolling vineyards around represent the other side of neckar-sulm. it was the wine growers who first helped the town to flourish. “we owe that to the sun”, they use to say and, “no sun – no wine”. and they also appreciate the benefits offered by the german solar electricity feed-in law (eeg), so that they have put up solar power plants on their barn roofs.

On the edge of Neckarsulm, a small photovoltaic module drives a rotating ball, quite a symbol of the municipality’s commitment to promote the use of solar energy. One of the promoters is Klaus Grabbe, deputy mayor in charge of buildings department. Throughout Neckarsulm, it is the many individual projects that matter to him. For instance, when the old glass panels had to be replaced on Baley, the municipal event centre, semi-trans-parent solar modules were mounted instead.

In a new building zone, the municipal utilities put up an autono-mous local district heating system supplied by a wood heating plant. The energy company EnBW AG did not like that at all. The company tried to persuade the municipality to change his mind and to connect the building zone to the power supplier’s long distance heating network. “But that is not what we want”, Grabbe says. Wherever possible renewable energies should be employed.

To be sure, Neckarsulm has been on the solar path not just since Grabbe has the say in building matters. As early as 15 years ago, a large-scale project for the use of solar heat has been realised in Neckarsulm, the kind of projects, which are still not very numerous. The whole borough of Amorbach has been connected to a seasonal thermal storage system, which saves the heat in summer to use it in wintertime. Here, the sun holds a 50 percent share of the heat supply.

Deputy Mayor Grabbe can easily translate his ideas into local policy since the municipal council backs him unanimously.

NECkARSULM (25,970 INHAB., GERmANy)

“we owe it to the sun”

Some years ago, all town council groups had joined in a letter, which encouraged him to leave Schwäbisch Hall and return to Neckarsulm. When it comes to solar energy, the town council takes a unanimous position, declares the community politician. Some of the members of the council operate their own pho-tovoltaic and solar thermal installations. Already 14 years ago, the registered association Solar- und Energie-Initiative Heil-bronn e.V. was founded on the initiative of Neckarsulm. And for some years now, the community has afforded its own pro-motion programme supporting citizens to buy their own solar energy panels. The town council has allocated 200.000 euros for this purpose.

Even Neckarsulm is not rolling in money, Grabbe says. But it’s all a question of priorities. So the town council has made a policy decision not to put up any new municipal buildings wit-hout an innovative approach to energy management. Presently, renewable energies account for heating ca. 80 percent of the community buildings. And the community relies on counselling citizens in manifold ways. As a result, citizens have already ins-talled many solar power installations. The total power thereof amounts to some 6 MW. To be added are solar thermal plants comprising a surface of over 10.000 square meters, 7.000 of which in the solar village of Amorbach.

The solar strategy also pays for Neckarsulm economically. When some years ago the company now named KAKO new energy GmbH was looking for a new location, Grabbe convinced them to benefit from the attractive terms and settle in Neckarsulm. “Back then we were still quite a small player”, KACO general manager Ralf Hofmann recalls. In the first year, they just sold four inverters, he reports. Today KACO numbers among Europe’s largest inverter manufacturers. “At that time, we were fortunate Neckarsulm took care of us”, Hofmann declares, “and today Neckarsulm can be happy we are here”. Andreas witt, June 2010

h There is not much to see from the big storages for solar thermal heat in the ground

$ In the district Amorbach big solar thermal installations on the roofs are providing heat for the buildings in the district

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orosháza lies near the south-eastern border of hungary where the glass manufacturing, agriculture machinery food and textile industries are the main industries. in orosháza, they set themselves the target to reduce their energy costs and modernize all the public buildings. they hired an energy manager, mr. József varjú, and their first step was to measure the status of their public buildings.

A series of public buildings have already been renewed. The renovations aim to rationalize the energy consumption and the use of renewable energy. The buildings of the general and the secondary school are completely renovated, the social home and social kitchen buildings were reconstructed, the heating systems were modernised, and the old windows were replaced. Further-more, 295 square meters of solar panels were put on the roofs.Another school is under retrofit nowadays: a thermal collector will provide the school’s hot water demand after the works.The Community Centre was rebuilt and operates in increased

floor space. The former synagogue building was also rebuilt and serves the public’s cultural need as the House of Arts.The municipality is planning to use the geothermal potential of the region, first with a 1 MW geothermal plant together with a nice wellness spa, which was developed in 2004. Further expan-sion is on the way with a 10 MW geothermal power plant that will provide the power for all of the public institutions.«Our currently running projects and existing systems based on renewable energy provide more than 11 MW total power!” says Mr. József Varjú, the energy-manager of the town.“We try to involve the people, so we started a program for retrofit the “soviet-style” apartment blocks, commonly known as “panel blocks”. The municipality helps these houses in the tendering operations, and selecting the contractors. It is important to give these experiences to the inhabitants, to encourage them to fol-low our good practises.”“For us, the European prize 2010 is a great honour, the fruit of our labour”, said Mr. Béla Németh, the Mayor of Orosháza.Emese kovács, Energiaklub

OROSHázA (29,629 INHAB., HuNGARy)

the muniCipality sets a gooD example on energy

litomerice, located in the north of prague, was the first Czech municipality, where local funding to support renewable energy stirred genuine interest in people in a change. litomerice, a town with 25,000 inhabitants, a centre of fertile lowlands nicknamed ‘the garden of bohe-mia‘, has helped many families with collectors’ installation by contributing from the town budget. the main support attraction is the town’s motto: “who gives quickly, gives twice”. it worked even when the state suspended national subsidies and the number of installations decreased. Just litomerice, where collectors were still accumulating in a solid pace, was an exception.You can recognize the progress mainly in the north of the city, in Pokratice, where you can see most of solar energy “traps”,

many of which are visible on rooftops already from afar. The picture that fans of green energy could see only in Germany or Austria until recently inspires others interested in promotion. And not only among citizens, but also among neighbouring mayors, who are considering introducing a municipal funding model in their villages and towns. It assists to significant influx of requests for contributions, when reports of further price increase of fos-sil energy appear in media. “It had not happen to us before, we have received an application for and managed to pay subsidies to five applicants by mid-January,” describes the growing interest Mr. Pavel Gryndler, Head of Municipal Environmental Office. It was him, who “has licked the local support into shape”, since 2002. The emergency model was adjusting with increasing amounts of

LITOMERICE (23,768 INHAB., CzECH REPuBLIC)

the solar garDen of bohemia

EuROPEAN CHAmPIONS OF RENEwABLE ENERGy MEDIUM CITIES

h Iquuntis alique pa simpero vitios nimagnis etur, aut accum sedi dolorem harcien ienimus at alic tem faccus um sedi dolorem harcie.

h The first step in the utilization of the geothermal potential of the region in the bath of Orosháza-Gyopárosfürd

h The building of the social home and public kitchen equipped with a 295m2 solar thermal system on the roof

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subsidies paid from the municipal budget from year to year. The original contribution was CZK 20,000 (i.e. EUR 800) per project. At the time of the suspended receipt of requests for state subsi-dies in 2005, the town doubled the contributions, i.e. the current 40,000 CZK for the project. Note that only apartment or house owners, who have installed at least 3 m2 of collector area and use the ecological heating (not coal), are entitled to contribution in Litomerice.In order to avoid conflicts with conservationists (as the centre of the town is in a listed area), it is necessary to inform the relevant building authority of the intention to install the system. It is also necessary to add the Heritage Institute’s opinion, if the house is located in the conservation zone. Even a citizen drawing a subsidy for a solar installation would get into troubles, if he started heating with coal again. Not only he would have to return the subsidy, but he would also have to pay a fine in the same amount. However, this scenario has not happened yet.

Carving riCharDDoes a town have to be rich in order to be able to afford such solar presents for its citizens? The reality was more prosaic. Richard is responsible for all that. But he is not a local VIP, it is the lifeless storage of low radioactive waste at the bottom of the mine of the same name. When the city got the compensation for its “nuclear pit”, which was designed for environmental purposes, it was decided.“We started to pay citizens extra money for collectors at a time when the amount of the state financial support was not so inte-resting and the reception of requests was quite irregular”, says Paul Gryndler about the start. He himself was inspired by local support in some German cities. Since then, roughly a third of com-pensation for “Richard” has been directed to the solar installations, but the town hall intend to continue with the support even after this resource dries out. The solar contributions are a matter of priority, not a question of the town budget. In 2001, Litomerice

was awarded the Czech Solar Prize (from the domestic branch of EUROSOLAR). Partly taking the idea from Litomerice, further seven Czech municipalities have started to implement the idea of local subsidies (including Plzen city). However, Litomerice is the only place where the contributions are paid within 14 days after approval of the request. Compared to the State Fund, from which the applicants receive money usually after months, the town impe-tus operates psychologically more effectively for urban citizens, although the amount of contribution is lower. Town contributions, whose attractiveness is rising just as they come together with government subsidies, come part and parcel with hard rules. A citizen, who installed panels on his house heated by coal, knows quite something hereabout. The situation became clear during the mandatory inspection tour before payment of the subsidy, so this investor did not get a single Crown of the subsidy.

storehouse for followersEven one of the town councillors promotes the town’s solar policy with collectors on his roof. You can found modules on the roof of deputy mayor Mr Ivan Palán as well. In addition to supporting individuals, however, the Town Hall has supported 11 collectors for an elementary school and a few smaller installations for the town gamekeeper’s house, the asylum house and a collecting yard. It has even supported larger systems for an orphanage and newly on the roof of the hospice. The city converts the public to renewable energy as well as by organizing the annual festival of solar technologies at the square.

PS: In the ten years of the town’s supporting renewable energy, 170 installations with a total collector area of solar thermal instal-lations of some 1,000 m2 and 420 kWp of photovoltaic output were created (but PV is not supported by local grants). Howe-ver, as the first one in the country Litomerice now plan another ambitious project: greater use of geothermal energy in the central borehole. Jiri Dvorak, June 2010

$ Solar thermal installation (132 kW) on the roof of a primary school in The Solar Garden of Bohemia

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ulm won the res Champions league in 2010 in the divi-sion of large cities and is still the leading large city in the german solarbundesliga. in 2010, about 13 mw in pv power were installed in ulm. in september 2011, one and a half year later the city has reached about 31 mw. other renewable energy sources are used in ulm: solar thermal collectors with 15 000 square meters, one big biomass plant is also running. and end of the year, the local utility will start a new one with wood coming from the region.

The success for renewables didn’t come over night. Some people in Ulm have worked on this since decades. Some years ago, the city council initiated and established a foundation, the “Solarstif-tung Ulm/Neu-Ulm”. The aim is to make the further development of renewable energy independent from the money, which the city has in its pocket. That’s why the city has a support system for the citizens who want to install solar panels on the roofs of their houses. And there are various opportunities for the citizens to get information around renewables. Andreas witt, Solarthemen

ULM (117,081 INHAB., GERmANy)

sun power to the people

EuROPEAN CHAmPIONS OF RENEwABLE ENERGy LARGE CITIES

h Solar art is one manifestation of the will of the city to develop renewable energy

$ Even the touristic boats are fitted with photovoltaic panels on their roof$ From every point of view in Ulm: the Ulmer Münster

cathedral and photovoltaic panels

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Czestochowa is a city located in southern poland, on the Cracow-Czestochowa upland. it is the 13th biggest city in the country regarding the population with 250 000 inhabitants.

For many years, a precisely planned and consistently imple-mented long-term set of actions is the basis for rational use of energy in the Municipality of Czestochowa. Since 2003, realiza-tion of these actions is supervised by Municipal Engineer who manages the office which coordinates realization of tasks rela-ted to electricity, heat and gas supply, collective water supply, col-lective sewage disposal and municipal lighting. Thanks to such actions Czestochowa managed to achieve in the period 2004-2009 significant reductions in expenses related to energy and water consumption and sewage disposal.

Here are for instance the savings achieved for the group of 121 educational centres:- energy and fuels consumption in 2009 came to 54.190 MWh and was lower by 18.500 MWh (which is 25,5%) in comparison with the year 2003,- CO2 emission in 2009 came to 24.420 Mg and was lower by 7.800 Mg (which is 24,1%) in comparison with the year 2003,- water consumption was reduced from 202,6 ths m3 in 2003 to 128 ths m3 in 2009 (reduction by 36,8%).

The effectiveness of Czestochowa’s energy policy is increasing also due to investments in thermomodernization of buildings and energy saving measures: thermal retrofit of seven educational centres combined with modernization of their heat sources, modernization of heat distribution centres in 41 buildings and of boiler houses in six educational centres, modernization of street lighting consisting in replacement of about 3 000 lighting fit-tings and lighting sources (which also had positive influence on the quality of lighting and the level of safety in public places).

At present, a thermomodernization of 39 multi-family buildings is being carried out. It includes replacing coal-fired boilers with gas-fired ones. Moreover, thanks to the support of the municipa-lity, the citizens managed to modernize 856 old coal-fired boiler houses. The inhabitants of Czestochowa installed modern and ecological heat sources and 25 sets of solar collectors.

In Czestochowa various renewable energy sources are used, including:- biogas : used for electricity production at the municipal waste landfill site (three generators with combined capacity of 2650 kW), as well as at the sewage treatment plant (power generating set with a capacity of 829 kW);- biomass : used at Agricultural Production Cooperative “Rza-sawa” (straw-fired boiler house with a capacity of about 500 kW) and at the Czestochowa Match Industry Factory (biomass-fired boiler with a capacity of 1300 kW);- hydro energy : used for electricity production in a small hydro power plant located at the Kucelinka river (capacity: 75 kW);

CzESTOCHOWA (240,600 INHAB., POLAND)

energy poliCy as a priority in the muniCipality’s Development

- solar energy : used for preparation of warm usable water at the Voivodeship Specialist Hospital of St. Mary the Virgin. Total area of the collectors, which are part of the solar installation, comes to 1495 m²; - wind energy : used for electricity production in 2 wind power plants with the capacity of 125 KW each.

Moreover, the construction of a new Fortum CHP plant (120 MW of thermal capacity and 64 MW of electrical capacity) is almost finished. Biomass will constitute 25% of the feedstock for the plant.

Proper electricity management by the Municipality of Czesto-chowa is also guaranteed by implementation of actions related to supplying municipal buildings with energy. The city has, regu-larly updates and implements „The assumptions of the plan for supplying the City of Czestochowa with heat, electricity and gas fuels”. Since 2008, Czestochowa launches calls for tenders for electricity supply to municipal buildings, which brings measu-rable financial benefits for municipal budget. In three buildings of the Czestochowa City Council, there is also a system for on-line monitoring of heat, electricity and water consumption. It enables current control of the consumption and quick reaction when fai-lures or irregularities are identified.

Since 2007, a Council for the Sustainable Development of the City’s Energy Economy operates in Czestochowa, which proves that the city conducts its energy policy according to modern trends. The Council is an innovative platform of cooperation between energy companies, local authorities and representa-tives of the world of science.

As multidimensional education of citizens is a condition for pro-per use of energy resources in the municipality, Czestochowa launched special internet website: “Energy and environment” (www.czestochowa.energiaisrodowisko.pl). It teaches how to save energy, increase energy efficiency and promotes envi-ronmental protection. Using the website Czestochowa ensures appropriate level of ecological awareness of its inhabitants and contributes to the creation of civil society, which actively partici-pates in the process of taking decisions related to sustainable development of local energy economy, municipal energy plan-ning and environmental protection.

Enterprises in the field of energy and environmental mana-gement realized by Częstochowa, as well as results of its local energy policy, gained recognition of the President of Energy Regulatory Office and the specialists from the branch. They may serve as an excellent example for other local authorities. In 2009 Czestochowa received “New Impulse” award for its enga-gement in actions promoting energy-saving technologies, sha-ping citizens energy awareness and taking up pioneering action at the energy market. The award is granted by “New Industry” economic monthly magazine.marcin Biernat, Deputy mayor of Czestochowa, june 2010

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in september 2008, the city of grenoble (france) outli-ned 30 concrete actions as part of the wider plan called “grenoble, factor 4” which aims to cut the city’s green-house gas emissions in four, confirming its commitment to climate and energy issues. two years later, a mid-term report was delivered on the 18th october 2010 at the municipal board meeting.

With regards to renewable energy production, the two key actors in the city of Grenoble, both of which are partly publicly owned, are the gas and electricity company ‘Gaz et Electricité de Gre-noble’ and the heating company, ‘Compagnie de Chauffage’.

In 2008 alone, 28 000 tons of greenhouse gases were avoided thanks to the urban heating system at Villeneuve. Burning 35,000 tons of wood creating 35 MW of energy, this power station is the most powerful biomass plant dedicated to district heating in France.

The heating company ‘Compagnie de Chauffage’, managing the second leading regional district heating in France, achieved 50% of its heat through waste incineration and renewable energy. This achievement meant that the VAT rates for this company were lowered for customer’s bills from 19.6% to 5.5% at the end of 2009.

From the winter of 2010-2011, a new investment will allow fuel to be substituted by gas on another site in the ‘Cie de Chauffage’, allowing a further 3,200 tons of CO2 to be saved.

The city is supporting the competitive cluster Tenerrdis (that works solely on new energy and renewable energy) alongside many research projects and experiments into solar photovol-taic, hydroelectricity, fuel cells, hydrogen storage and intelligent

energy ‘Smart Electricity’.At the end of 2009, 500 kWc of solar photovoltaic panels were connected to Grenoble’s electricity network. The gas and electri-city company in Grenoble ‘Gaz Électricité de Grenoble’ has instal-led over 800 m2 of solar PV panels on the low-energy consuming building named ‘the reflections of Drac’ (‘Les Reflets du Drac’) (situated in the ecodistrict of Bouchayer-Viallet) and installed close to 1000 m2 on the future commercial space in De Bonne district.

The city of Grenoble is not solely focused on renewable energy production, heavily investing in many other areas that will allow it to save energy: • Buildings : a local program for the improvement of the energy

efficiency of buildings in the ‘Grands Boulevards’ district, applying low energy consumption standards for new buildings. There was also a Biennale for sustainable housing.

• Town planning : an ecodistrict was made out of the concerted urban development area (ZAC) in the following districts: ‘De Bonne’, ‘Bouchayer-Viallet’, ‘Esplanade’ and ‘Presqu’île’.

• Transport : four, with a fifth coming very soon, tram lines cove-ring a total distance of 33 km, a pro-cycling policy with over 80 km of dedicated cycle paths and 31.5 km of roads with a speed limit of 30km per hour.

Grenoble’s dedication has been widely recognized through a number of prizes it received in 2009:• National Grand prize of ecodistricts for the concerted urban

development area (ZAC) in the De Bonne neighbourhood.• The Rubans Laureat for sustainable development for its ‘Gre-

noble, Factor 4’ project• Gold prize (guidon d’or) for its cycling campaign ‘réflexe vélo’• Winner of the solar category and wood-energy category in the

French Renewable Energy League. CLER

GRENOBLE (158,746 INHAB., FRANCE):

a City with positive energy

EuROPEAN CHAmPIONS OF RENEwABLE ENERGy LARGE CITIES

h Solar photovoltaic modules integrated on the roof of the Stadium of the Alpes in Grenoble

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not only pilsner beer but also a rise of solar systems counts to growing renown of the town A West Bohemia region capital Pilsner (with 165 000 inhabi-tants the fourth largest town in the Czech Republic) has became an honoured champion during the six years of the Czech solar league existence. In the final ranking of the 6th season of the Czech solar league (2010), Pilsner scored with 1106 m2 of thermal collectors, 63 m2 vacuum collectors, and 971 kWp of photovoltaic installations.The sustainable energy policy of the town has been based on well thought out concept. This concept was the very first one in terms of towns with the same status within the administrative governmental system. Points received as a result of an increase of thermal systems area or of photovoltaic installations power do not mostly result from a spontaneous flow of applications to the competition submitted by inhabitants. In fact, most of the appli-cations are submitted by František Kęrka, who is responsible for energy issues at the town hall energy office. This is rather exceptional approach in the Czech solar league as most town halls do not take this responsibility. Pilsner also has been a good example of the fact that interest in solar systems, as well as in other renewable resources, can be supported “bottom-up” by subsidies from town budget. “In the last year, our program of subsidies provided 2200 CZK/1 m2 (about 88 EUR) in the case of thermal collectors installa-tions,” says František Kurka. “We did not support photovoltaic installations last year (but we did in previous years). At the end of the day, we financially supported 16 thermal collectors installations (total area 120,2 m2). The town paid in subsidies about 250000 CZK (average 16320 CZK per installation).” This amount covers only about 1/7 of the total costs of an instal-lation assigned for hot water production for an average family. However, together with other (governmental) subsidies, in total the subsidies can cover more than half of the costs. People in Pilsner are sorry that for the current year, due to the economic crisis, subsidies have not been approved. For all that, there are many interesting solar systems installations in Pilsner, which definitely will henceforth inspire many people. Let’s mention just

PILSNER (165,238 INHAB., CzECH REPuBLIC):

onCe again on a sun throne

one of them. A roof of the technical university has been for a long time a great example of various kinds of solar installations – one can see here a broad range of installations starting with “solo” thermal panels on one hand, and ending with photovoltaic installation (20 kWp) on the other hand.

The most interesting installation of 2009 is located on a roof of a residential house at Resslova street. On the roof you can be seen not only collectors (18 m2, 800 litres tank) but also photovoltaic installation (5 kWp), and a unique combined, water-cooled photovoltaic installation (2 kWp). Water cooling not only increases power output of the power station itself but besides that thermal effluent produced during cooling process preheats supply water in collector, and produced electricity is used to fina-lize water heating process.

Thus, there was a good reason to bring representatives of the Czech solar league participants to the spot to demonstrate these interesting results. The League of Ecological Alternatives, which runs the Czech Solar League, organized a tour to Pilsner within a local conference in April 2010 as one of many RES Champions League events.

Pilsner is famous all over the world for the beer produced in the town. However, potential to inspire people in terms of solar energy is also compelling. There is a lot to see not only for domestic fans of solar and renewable energy. The town also exploits seven cogeneration units, plus another one on the way, among which the largest installation in the country producing 10,3 MW electricity and 35 MW thermal, burning waste wood and other biomass. karel merhaut, LEA

h The biggest biomass cogeneration unit in the CR, which burns the waste wood and other biomass

h   Solar power plant (20 kWp) on the roof of the West Bohemia University attracts attention of participants of the LEA’s field trips

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the green energy projects‘ exchange in prague was crowned with the announcement of the winners of res Champions league, season 2.

Eight hours long “marathon” with the most frequent words “solar energy”, “biomass energy”, “renewable energy sources” (RES); more than 120 participants; 30 speakers; a display of 10 projects supported by Intelligent Energy Europe (IEE) program, which municipalities can draw from; 12 representatives of the most successful municipalities from 7 European countries; a photo-graphing of champions on the PV roof of the National Theatre service building; a projection of documentary films about RES Champions League winners in a real cinema; an evening informal and friendly discussion; a following excursion along solar top-pro-jects in Prague and its neighbourhood … - this is a brief review of the conference, which took place in the Czech Parliament on 2nd June 2011. “Right in the context of what Czech NGOs call the “dark age” of renewable energy, we considered it necessary to organize directly in the political bastion of our country a full day exchange on the best projects of European municipalities in the field of renewable energy, which were popularized by the RES Champions League

and other sustainable energy projects supported by the IEE pro-gram,” says Aleš Lisa, President of LEA. The conference named “Top-RES projects in municipalities - inspiration, perspectives, barriers” was held under the patronage of Mr. Milan Štovícek, the Chairman of the Environment Committee, Chamber of Deputies, Parliament of the Czech Republic.

Champions in the four divisions of the RES Champions League, from German municipalities Kronprinzenkoog, Crailsheim and Reutlingen and Italian municipality Brunico, as well as represen-tatives of other eight municipalities on the 2nd or 3rd places in each division, excelled with the achieved level of the RES utiliza-tion. They showed, which energy way front-runner EU “players” walk. And what was the main benefit of a generously conceived “RES festival” in Prague? It was a contribution to another positive wave of interest for this future energetic sector – both in the organi-sing country, which takes hard time, and in other seven countries involved in the competition. Even of course in farther European countries, which are permanently invited to join the movement, in accordance with the established competition’s motto “Play the game, play now!”. karel merhaut, LEA, June 2011

the res Champions league showeD whiCh way europe walks on!

EuROPEAN CHAmPIONS OF RENEwABLE ENERGy

2011 european ChampionsDivision european Champions

general ranking : ALL SIZES

1st : kronprinzenkoog (GERMANY) 2nd : nagypáli (HUNGARY) / 3rd : DobbiaCo (ITALY)

small Cities : FROM 5,000 TO 19,999 INH.

1st : bruniCo (ITALY) 2nd : szCzawniCa (POLAND) / 3rd : Chepelare (BULGARIA)

meDium Cities : FROM 20,000 TO 99,999 INH.

1st : Crailsheim (GERMANY) 2nd : JinDriChuv hraDeC (CZECH REPUBLIC) / 3rd : Chambéry (FRANCE)

large Cities : MORE THAN 100,000 INH

1st : reutlingen (GERMANY) 2nd : bolzano (ITALY) / 3rd : byDgoszCz (POLAND)

$ Municipality representatives awarded during the 2nd ceremony in Prague, June 2011

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h PV folio on the roof of the National Theatre service building in Prague

h Champions of the division LARGE CITIES

h Champions of the division SMALL CITIES

h Champions of the division GENERAL RANKING

h Champions of the division MEDIUM CITIES

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the small community kronprinzenkoog lives from mar-ket gardening, some stock farming, tourism and the pro-duction of electricity from renewable energy sources. for several years, it has been in the top group of the solarbundesliga. and in 2011, on 25 June, the village from schleswig-holstein, lying a few kilometres from the coast of the north sea, even organized the nationwide celebration of the solar champions.

Mayor Thomas Masekowitz, who works as a policeman, was very enthusiastic about the event: „This connects the whole vil-lage.“ Many of the inhabitants joined the preparation to make the event a success. And instead of the usual one-day event, the people in Kronprinzenkoog made it a three-day event. Starting with a bicycle ride around energy projects, followed by an ’energy’ cinema in a big barn and the award ceremony. This event culmi-nated by visits of installations. Three full days were conceived „in the service of the Sun“. This was supplemented by a company exhibition so that people from the whole region could get infor-mation about renewable energy technologies.

Masekowitz and his companions want to reach out beyond their own borders. So they join renewable energy and tourism. For the people from Kronprinzenkoog, wind turbines do not re-present a headache, but now a natural part of their landscape. And maybe some tourists even come just because of the tur-bines. In the neighbouring community Kaiser-Wilhelm-Koog was built between 1983 and 1987 the largest wind turbine in the world then (the Growian). Unfortunately, it became a failure, due to material problems that were not to be solved back in the 80’s. Nevertheless, the region stayed a cradle of German wind power generation. Shortly after the dismantling of the Growian, the first commercial wind farm with 32 small wind turbines was

developed there. And it was the villagers who invested here, not only foreign financiers. Masekowitz emphasizes, even now when three „citizen“ (invested together by people) wind power parks were „repowered“ – the turbines of the first generations were replaced with the modern multimegawatt machines – 140 per-sons from Kronprinzenkoog and the municipality itself contribu-ted to the investment.

About a year later, in 1989, the first wind turbines were installed in Kronprinzenkoog. By 1996, reports Masekowitz, 77 wind tur-bines were built with a capacity of 150 to 500 kW. The repowe-ring started in 2009: the small turbines are replaced by 39 much more efficient wind turbines with a capacity of 2 to 3 MW. Already the wind turbines in Kronprinzenkoog feed in about 200 million kWh – enough for the needs of 50,000 German households.

Kronprinzenkoog is located on the North Sea coast in northern Germany, about 100 kilometres northwest of Hamburg. Only ten kilometres away the nuclear power plant Brunsbüttel is located. Since 2007, it has not produced electricity. So, Kronprinzenkoog production is an alternative to the nuclear energy.

The resort has also a biogas plant with a capacity of 500 kW. And in recent years, solar power with a total of more than 7 MW has been added. A carport is under construction - the mayor would like to embed it in a touristic concept for electric vehicles. He would like to enable tourists to drive from power electric station to station along the entire coast with solar cars. „Tourism projects help us not only to better acceptance of renewable energies,“ says Masekowitz, „but also practically involves the tourists into the idea of a 100-percent supply by renewable energy sources.“Andreas witt

kRONPRINzENkOOG (882 INHAB., GERmANy)

a tourist village proDuCes green energy

EuROPEAN CHAmPIONS OF RENEwABLE ENERGy GENERAL RANTING

h The people in Kronprinzenkoog belong to the pioneers who have use wind energy since 1983. Now they are building new and bigger turbines instead of the old ones.

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the small town of Dobbiaco, in the province of bol-zano, has installed a mix of six renewable technologies producing electrical and thermal energy able to supply the energy needs of the whole community. therefore, the council was awarded the title of “100% renewable City” by the 2008 and 2009 legambiente report on renewable municipalities. in 2011, it was recognized as one of the most advanced italian municipalities in the development of renewable energies and local energy policies.

Dobbiaco has PV systems on the roofs (1 MW, 12% of it on public buildings), three small hydroelectric power stations (1.2 MW) and a biomass power plant (1.8 MW). The heat is provi-ded by a biomass plant (18 MW) and a biogas plant (132 kW), which cover the needs of all residential, commercial and tourist buildings. Roof collectors with a surface of 1,350 m2 are another source of heating.

The strategic decision to build a central heating system was made by the city council, in cooperation with the nearby city of

San Candido. In addition to the coverage of the heat need in Dobbiaco, the heat production meets also 20% of the demand in San Candido. They annually burn 700,000 m3 of biomass (mainly wood waste). Distribution network is 46 km long. The district heating plant is managed by a cooperative society of 500 families and allows consumers to save 50% on their energy bill (in euros). The management company of the Dobbiaco-San Can-dido biomass plant has always paid great attention to informa-tion and training, especially directed at young people. For these reasons, it is possible for some years to visit the district heating biomass plant and follow the didactic excursion on biomass.There are several advantages of using the biomass plant and its connection to a district heating system: better air quality, benefits for local economy restoring the economic attractiveness of tradi-tional activities such as forestry and forest maintenance, control of the phenomenon of the abandonment of mountain through the creation of new jobs, use of waste, energy self-sufficiency.Dobbiaco has the title of ’100% Renewable City’ and has also received other awards. The most valuable one is from Eurosolar, which under lines the form of a local partnership and ownership of RES sources from view of real independence. Legambiente

DOBBIACO (3292 INHAB., ITALy)

6 renewable energy sourCes, even for neighbours

nagypáli seems to be the perfect village to set as an example for every settlement not only in hungary but in all europe regarding sustainability, renewable energy use and prospective thinking. this year brought the international and national acknowledgment as well (2011 european res Champions league and 2011 hun-garian solar league awards) of the efforts the devoted mayor and citizens of nagypáli made in the last ten years to develop their village by promoting solar and biomass energy use.

As part of its program of economic development, which heeds the usage of RES, they built the regional renewable energy centre with a 140 m2 solar collector surface and a 32 kW bio-mass boiler. In total, the village has a solar thermal collector sur-face of 316 m2, 5 kW photovoltaic capacity and biomass use of 82 kW capacity. In 2009, the municipality created a 2 ha energy

plantation – initially with experimental purposes – of Japanese willow, which has a brown coal competing heating value, contains only 15% ash and could provide heating for approximately 10 houses in one heating season. The municipality is convinced that energy willow is a potential alternative for rapeseed, as it is easy to plant, grow and requires less labour and machine work. They plan to install a 35 kW photovoltaic plant and use the produced electricity to light public buildings and street-lighting.

Lately Nagypáli has become an eco-touristic destination, groups with different backgrounds (staff from other municipalities, mayors, school groups, university students and foreign tourists as well) come here to learn from their example and to get to know sustainable technologies. The increasing number of inhabitants of mainly younger generations shows that dynamic development can be achieved applying new technologies and with the commit-ted work open minded leaders and communities. Energy Club

NAGYPáLI (448 INHAB., HuNGARy)

small but strong… anD stronger every Day!

$ Biosolar system in the municipal house of Nagypáli

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the town of brunico is located in the region of val pus-teria in south tyrol. 5 different renewable technologies produce here more electricity and heat than residents need. brunico received the award „100% renewable City“ from the non-profit organization legambiente.

The thermal solar systems with a surface of 840 m2 meet the demand of householders and hotels. But the greatest contribu-tion to energy is the 450 km long local heating network with a 9 MW biomass plant and a 1.5 MW biogas plant. Another big achievement of the council is the heating system in the School Centre. Vacuum tube collectors cover an area of 750 m2, also includes 3 under-ground tanks of large capacity. The system uses low temperature radiators and a underfloor heating system.

Enlightened local authority also distributes photovoltaic panels on the roofs of the buildings, now they produce an output of more than 3 MW. It covers the electricity needs of 1,500 families. The panels are placed also on the roof of the elementary school and the fire station. These two systems with an output of 32 kW and 64 kW make the building energy independent. The variety of energy sources is also documented by three mini-hydroe-lectric plants totalling 4.4 MW and a 46.3 MW old hydroelectric plant (but this one is not counted in the determination of 100% renewable city dossier for Legambiente).

The Council had the commitment to continue investing into the

RES, through the “Building Regulations” drawn up in 2010. They establish that new public and private buildings has to cover the 25% of total energy requirements of the building or not less than 50% of energy requirements for the production of hot water, through the use of renewable sources.

The clear direction of Brunico is also confirmed by fact that the solar collectors are even on the roof of the town hall.katiuscia Eroe

BRUNICO (13,370 INHAB., ITALy)

energy self-suffiCient town for eleCtriCity anD heat

Curative town nearby slovakian border szczawnica won the polish res league in its category in 2010 thanks to solar energy use. already in 2007 municipality representatives decided to use interesting program about cli-mate protection for wholesale installation of solar collectors. the local spa-tial development plan for the zone of environmental preservation within natura 2000 areas and national parks, which cover approx. 97% of the muni-cipality area, rule out the use of other res.

In the health resort, which has to meet specific air, water and soil protection standards, was establi-shed the association „EKO Szczawnica“. Over 400 people joined it. Local authorities precisely defined conditions of participation and timetable of planned activities and Voivodeship Fund for Environmental Protection granted a loan of almost PLN 3.5 million with an interest rate of 4%.The project entitled „Reduction of emissions through RES use by individual and collective consumers with special focus to solar installations“ includes purchase and installation of complete solar systems with total absorption surface of 3,600 m2 and capacity of 2,700 kW. Investment expenditure was PLN 8.4 million.

SzCzAWNICA (7,479 INHAB., POLAND)

health resort full of solar installations

EuROPEAN CHAmPIONS OF RENEwABLE ENERGy SMALL CITIES

h Photovoltaic plant on the roof of the fire brigade in Brunico

h Solar thermal installations in Szczawnica became a natural component of beautiful landscape

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Chepelare is a small resort town at an elevation of about 1,100 meters surrounded by 30,000 ha of forests. it has become one of the leading ski resorts in bulga-ria recently. there is snow for about half a year and the heating season lasts 250 days. a wood chips producer is settled here, who works biomass from logging and furniture industry. therefore the municipality has set the ambitious goal of replacing heating systems in all municipal schools and kindergartens in order to switch from oil to biomass heating.

The realisation of this goal started in the kindergarten Elhitsa. The heating volume of the building is 3,637 m3. It services for 84 children plus 26 teachers and support personnel. The kindergarten consumed 24 tons of heavy fuel oil worth almost 20,000 EUR before. The challenge in this project was that the building did not have enough space to accommodate a boiler room. The boiler and the ancillary equipment have therefore been situated in a 20 m3 metal container with thermal insulation – an „energy cabin“. The hot water boiler with an output of 271 kW is equipped with an automated fuel-feeding device and fire

CHEPELARE (5,646 INHAB., BuLGARIA)

on its way to Clean energy

h Biomass boilers in Chepelare h Wood chips supply of the boilers

safety system.An additional pipe connecting the energy cabin with the exis-ting pipe network of the internal heating installation has been built. The efficiency of the new boiler is 85%. The kindergar-ten consumes now 112 t of wood chips per year worth 8,300 EUR. The reduction of all energy bills is 22,000 EUR /year and CO2 emission savings are 86 t/year. The payback period of this investment will be very short: 2.2 years.

After the success of the kindergarten project the municipality replaced old boiler in the Professional School of Forestry as well. The wood chips boiler has an output of 230 kW. The total cost savings will be 24,000 EUR/year and CO2 emission savings will be 104 t/year. The investment costs 66,000 EUR will be paid-back again very fast - in 2.8 years.

The town continues with the replacement of heating systems in a local hospital, city hall and two kindergartens. The total instal-led output in these facilities is more than 1 MW…milena Agopyan

Residents paid always 40% of the equipment price. Thanks to the tenacity of the local government, the ‘National fund of envi-ronmental protection and water management’ also provided resources in addition to the county fund. Avalanche of collectors, which installation were managed by several companies, then floo-ded not only family houses but also roofs of larger buildings with rental apartments for spa guests and tourists. Even on Solar Spa hotel grew out the system with 103 modules.

Finally over 1,500 collectors of total area about 4,000 m2 were installed. This year, Szczawnica scored in the RES Champions

League with 5,430 m2 of collectors. Now its citizens are happy to use hot water from their solar installations and revel that CO2 emissions decreased and the air is much cleaner. But the outcome was also numerous meetings with citizens and members of the association, which grew environmental awareness of public. Even schools were involved in competitions, trainings and seminars.

First of this kind and definitely a breakthrough in Poland, this concept has then inspired further municipalities arround, but they have mostly used funds from the European Union for their projects.Ekoszczawnica

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among the smaller cities in the german solarbundesliga, the award was won six times in a row by neckarsulm, but since summer 2008 the number one has been Crailsheim, baden-würtemberg. it deserves so due to the city energy uti-lity (stadtwerke Crailsheim). besides private entrepreneurs and an agile com-pany, the person in behind is mr Josef wagner, the company general mana-ger. it was the initiator of one of the largest thermal installation in germany – having collectors with area of 7,500 m2!

CRAILSHEIM (32,574 INHAB., GERmANy)

sun heats the housing estate in winter as well

a popular town amid nature’s beauty of the south of bohemia – Jindrichuv hradec – has registered 856 m2 thermal systems in the solar league. these are applica-tions of assembly companies and of citizens. the town hall does not summarise additions of solar installations for the league. it in active manner, however, rather sup-ports biomass-fired heating plants, which supply heat to a great deal of the town.

The pride of the City is a ’thermal installation’ on top of the swim-ming pool, which is one of the largest in the Czech Republic with its 284 m2. It was supplemented with photovoltaic equipment (30 kW). In the developed areas small warm water systems on family houses, which were subsidised by the state till the last year, prevail by large. There are a lot of photovoltaic power stations (7 MW) here.

„Because the City is covered by protection of historical monu-ments, allocating of solar sources is rather difficult,“ explains Mr Bohumil Krejcí, Head of the Planning and Building Control and Land-Use Plan Department of the City Authority. ’We therefore enabled to place them on areas not important for views and on the outskirts.’

For cleaner air in the city, they facilitated a contribution for the pur-chase of a biomass gasification boiler for citizens, when replacing a fossil fuelfired source, as one of the first ever many years ago.Simultaneously to the project of so-called Energocentrum, an investment subsidised by CZK 100 million (i.e. 70% of its price) from the EU-PHARE pro-gramme, the City Energy Concept of Jindrichuv Hradec was developed. It was a complete docu-ment involving a feasibility study and a proposal of biomass as a prospective source of heat for the whole city heat network. The network is operated by the company of Teplospol, which has an up-to-date biomass-fired heating plant with output of 6 MW, where wood chips are employed as fuel. In 2008 an up-to-date cogeneration source, until recently the largest one in the Czech Republic, was put on stream in Energo-centrum, besides a back-up heavy oil-fired boiler bearing troubles with flue gas. There is a packed-straw-fired boiler with output of 18.5 MW there. The por-tion of output of 5.6 MW is dedicated to electricity generation. The current owner of the plant, the company of CEZ, supplies heat from there into the network of Teplospol. If all biomass sources are heating at full capacity they are able to cover up to 80 % of the city heat needs. „Trouble is that wood chips have become deficient and their quality has been worsening as well,“ says Mr. Zdenek Svacina, Director of

JINDRICHUV HRADEC (22,300 INHAB., CzECH REPuBLIC):

bet on biomass seCureD by a solar portfolio

The project is outstanding by its huge seasonal storage facilities to store energy of summer time sun for winter time. The company has been installing the system at the housing estate Hirtenwie-sen II since 2005. Ms Eva Réhu of Crailsheim utility says: „For-merly there was a military airport here – the long-distance heating network was already there. The idea to produce a huge amount of solar energy for the same purpose was created simultaneously with the idea to use the noise-control barrier separating the hou-sing estate from the industrial zone.“

Collectors on the mound, yet others with surface area of 400 m2 each are also placed on five residential buildings, on the grammar school (530 m2) and on a sports hall (220 m2), and produce roughly half of heat energy necessary for heating and hot water production for 470 dwellings, school and hall.

„Solar energy will serve two thousand people here,“ says E. Réhu. Because of three huge thermal accumulators it may be used in winter time as well. For the purpose, lime sediments were employed, in which an accumulator based on ground wells was

created in the depth up to 55 metres. Their number shall increase to 160 from the today 80. They shall provide storage capacity of 20,000 m3!

Besides the main project, which involves two heat pumps (530 kW each), Crailsheim utilises other RES as well. It has a wind power station (1.5 MW), biogas station (1 MW), and a hydro-power station (42 kW). The photovoltaic has been developing well, nowadays there are over 10 MW installed in the city...

The heat supplier is also the only business partner in the Euro-pean project of MUSEC, which initiate the development of sustai-nable energy supply and associate solution designers from Italy, Netherlands, Demark and Bulgaria. The company also plans a unit, which has to recycle wastewater treatment sludge.

The newly installed Mayor Mr Rudolf Michl is convinced that the city will become self-sufficient on energy one time. Lars Schulz, Ina Röpcke, Andreas witt

EuROPEAN CHAmPIONS OF RENEwABLE ENERGy MEDIUM CITIES04

h Big solar thermal installations are situated on the noise protection wall

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since the creation of the french res league in 2005, the town of Chambéry (savoie) stands on the first place in the solar thermal ranking thanks to the total installed surface of 3,800 m2. „today, there are almost no new buildings or collective housings built without solar ther-mal panels“, highlights henri Dupassieux, deputy mayor in charge of sustainable development. this dynamic is promoted by the national institute for solar energy (ines) as well.

With the solar plant of Les Monts, Chambéry has been in 2004 one of the first French towns to develop such a large power plant. In order to strengthen its support to the photovoltaic industry (able to create even high skilled jobs), the municipality board then decided to make its own roofs available and to offer a full service - investors identification, organization of a local professional offer (design offices, manufacturers, distributors and installers), writing of legal contracts.The town initiated the creation of the organisation Solira, whose objective is to promote an ethical savings fund dedicated to pho-

CHAMBéRY (58,200 INHAB., FRANCE)

the frenCh pioneer of solar energy now thinks bigger

tovoltaic energy. Unfortunately, in the photovoltaic sector, even the best practices of territorial support depend on national decisions. The successive and brutal revisions of feed-in tariffs undermined the implementation of the system. „In France, national authorities always find good reasons to say that we should not go too fast“, states Henri Dupassieux, „whereas Germany installs each year as much photovoltaic power as the cumulated installed power that we intend to reach in 2020 (5,400 MW).“

Moreover, the town of Chambéry continues the diversification of energies supplying its district heating network. First it was 100% natural gas, then up to 30% of needs where covered by the heat recovery from the waste incineration plant of Chambéry urban area. The objective is to go over the 60% share of renewable and recovered energy by building two wood heating plants.

The Croix Rouge plant (7 MW) should start working at the end of 2011 and will use almost 14,000 tons of wood chips yearly; the Bissy plant (14 MW) will use (from 2013) double amount. Such an increase in the demand will allow developing the wood energy supply chain in Savoie. Local energy association ASDER, which organizes wood supply, has supported the project expertly.

„Our heating network, which supplies heat to the equivalent of 25.000 housings, is the fifth biggest heating network in France“, Henri Dupassieux adds. „With these realisations, Chambéry will respect from 2013 and for his own energy needs the European objectives of 20% share of renewable energy, 20% decrease of CO2 emissions and 20% decrease in energy consumption“. Additional actions outgoing from the Agenda 21 and from the climate and energy action plan of Chambéry go towards the achievement of these objectives for the whole territory.yannick Régnier, CLER

Teplospol. „Higher quality and drier wood chips can be delivered for a higher price to the heating plant in Gmünd, Austria. Opera-tors of similar heating plants, which are many in the area, com-pete to our plant regarding the purchase of wood fuel that they collect even from a distance of 70 km.“ The fuel is also bought up and overpaid by large-energy industry plants for co-firing with coal in coal-fired power plants, for which they may, despite their low effectiveness of combustion, claim subsidised price for elec-tricity – against common sense. Jindrichuv Hradec would rather got help by an environmentally more precisely reasoned legisla-tion providing subsidies solely to the biomass combustion with

effectiveness of 75 %, at least, than by an expansion of the RES mix utilised.

But in the city, they believe that renewable energy systems, pool of which has been recently expanded by a small retrofitted hydro-power station with output of 60 kW, will nevertheless grow in number. Although on the solar field, the already one-year-long stop status for the connection of new photovoltaic sources and halting of the Green Savings programme, which was subsidising solar collectors as well, do not indicate that at present. LEA

h One of the biggest solar thermal systems in the CR (284m2) supplemented with PV system (30kW) on the roof of the swimming pool

h Solar photovoltaic plant of «Les Monts» (100 kW): the largest installation in France back in 2004

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EuROPEAN CHAmPIONS OF RENEwABLE ENERGy LARGE CITIES

when solar cities are discussed in germany, reutlingen is not mentioned – there are rather freiburg or ulm poin-ted out. yet in recent years, the city has been making systematic effort in the res utilisation. as early as in 1994 the „energy table of patrons“ begun with reutlin-gen’s solar Days. in a year, the table Club gave birth to the association of solar energy of neckar alb. and it has been consistently increasing the citizen willingness to use green energy.

The City management pulled together with the citizens. For ins-tance, the city had a soccer stadium built as a building saving CO2. If these emissions from this type of buildings are usually around 261 tonnes per year, in this case they managed to reduce it to 37 tonnes. This is also due to a solar power plant (80 kW) integrated into the stadium roof. Another example is swivelling photovoltaic system built by the company Fair Energy, owned by the city, at the swimming pool. The source initiator was Mr Reinhard Braxmeier, representative of the City Hall for the Envi-ronment. He explains that they gave a good example to the city inhabitants at this frequently visited place. And installations on 12 schools shall be understood this way as well.

The City gets the citizens active. The city pays, for instance, energy advisors who gave hints for free to people at the City Hall on how to save energy. In 2010, they provided over 300 consul-tancies. And the local energy supplier provides a possibility to participate in the RES utilisation - also in an „offshore“ wind farm on the North Sea coast.

At the same time, they have already invested into many such ins-

tallations in Reutlingen. Up to this day, they installed photovoltaic systems with total output over 13 MW. On the roofs, there are collectors with total surface area of 8 000 m2. Besides there are power plants wood- and biogas-fired and also a hydropower plant. And the City intentionally purchases electricity for the City buildings from these retrofitted hydropower plants.

„Now Reutlingen has also got involved in the regional project of the Regions with 100% Renewable Energy“, says Braxmeier. But they will probably not attain this goal before a long time. The city wants, using the ongoing study, to discover, which potentials can still be utilised.Andreas witt

REUTLINGEN (112,270 INHAB., GERmANy)

large City aDvanCing to 100% renewable energy

BOLzANO (103,000 INHAB., ITALy)

THE CITy HIGHLIGHTS sustainable energy anD transportthe combination of 5 renewable energy technologies can be considered as the triumph of bolzano, which won the italian solar Championship and succeeded in res Champions league. this mix has enabled the commu-nity to cover 20% of the residents energy needs. it scores also with the implementations of laws aimed to make the construction sector more efficient.

The solar thermal and photovoltaic systems are the most spread technologies in Bolzano. These installations covered the rooftops of many public and private buildings (e.g. company Fiera di Bol-zano, whose headquarters hosts 2 plants of 300 kW today). The area has in total 5.4 MW of photovoltaic panels and 5,209 m2 of solar thermal panels. The mix is amended with the biomass heating plant (882 kW) and 2 small systems - geothermic (20

h Energy efficient collective housing with photovoltaic panels

h Evacuated tubes solar collectors on the roof of a public building in Bolzano

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bydgoszcz is a capital and the biggest city of the kujawsko-pomorskie voivodeship. in order to protect its natural values, the city undertakes various ecological activities and conducts environmental education of its inhabitants. since 2006, the city actively participates in the reduction of emissions and offers subsidy for repla-cement of coal boilers with ecological ones. it is one of the few polish cities, which are actively engaged in the realization of the eu climate and energy policy.

Realization of two new projects relates to it. The aim of the LAKS project is to develop methods of planning, management and fulfilment of obligations related to climate change prevention, as well as to increase awareness and sense of responsibility of local authorities, public and private institutions and citizens. The city developed Climate Protection Programme including activities, which will enable to reduce GHG emissions by 18.7% by 2020 (contrary to the period 2005-2009). They count with RES for heating and promote RES and energy efficiency. The trainings of city councillors, students and businessmen are part of the project too.

Second project („3x20 Network“) gives an opportunity to exchange best practices in the field of energy efficiency policies. It increases citizens’ energy awareness and strengthens their sup-port of ecological actions.

Bydgoszcz is also known for the wide use of RES. In May 2009,

a producer of frozen food products installed on the cold store roof the biggest PV system in Poland - 366 modules (total area 600 m2, output 81 kW). The system is fully automatic. Any occurring problems can be resolved remotely through the internet. Whole generated energy is used by the company, which allows saving up to 30% of energy used for refrigeration of the cold store. The investment of 400,000 EUR was from 80% financed with the funds from the Sectional Operational Program „Fishery and fish processing“.

There are two water trams as a part of the municipal transporta-tion system (and tourist attraction) powered by PV panels (total area 63 m2, output 9.8 kW). They start at the Fish Market and passengers can choose one of the three routes. Solar energy is also used in Pulmonology Center (area 28 m2, output 27 GJ/year), in 18 one-family cooperative houses (72 m2) and in one block of flats (126 m2).

In March 2001, Bydgoszcz Plywood Works launched operation of a new biomass power plant with two steam boilers (using wood chips, bark and sawdust) with an output of 5.3 MW each. They installed even multi-cyclones (efficiency up to 98%). Thanks to it, the company is self-sufficient in the field of heat production for technological and heating purposes.

Since 2010, the city organizes RES fair, which stimulates develop-ment of eco-energy market in Poland and central Europe.Anita marcinkiewicz, City Hall of Bydgoszcz

BYDGOSzCz (358,000 INHAB., POLAND)

the City bet on a green energy mix

h One of the main tourist attractions of the city and a part of the municipal transportation system: water tram «Sunflower» powered by sun

h 10,8 MW steam boilers fuelled with wood waste in „SKLEJKA-MULTI”

h Fuel storehouse located next to the boiler house in Plywood Works „SKLEJKA-MULTI” in Bydgoszcz

kW) and wind (3.8 kW).In 2005, Bolzano was the first city in Italy to adopt quality stan-dards in terms of energy efficiency with indicators even more restrictive than required by the national law. It adopted a buil-ding regulation about compulsory RES utilization in new buil-dings, which should produce 25% of electric energy and 50% of domestic hot water. Moreover, all new buildings have to be ‘Class B’ according to the energy certificate system ‘Casa Clima’ (it means energy consumption less than 50 kWh/m2/year). The city became an example of sustainable construction.The conferment of the title „Alpine City of the Year 2009“ was the credit for the city involvement in the sustainable development,

the climate protection and the fulfilment of the project „Bolzano neutral climate city“ with the aim to reduce the CO2 emissions thanks to the RES utilization, energy efficiency and sustainable transport.

Another project ‘“Agreement for the mobility“ aimed to find new solution to solve the mobility problem in the South Bolzano area through agreements between companies, associations and labour unions contributed to the construction of a new runway and to the introduction of the „Voucher for Transport“, which pro-motes more sustainable transport services.katiuscia Eroe

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NO EuROPEAN CONTEST wITHOuT NATIONAL LEAGuES05

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A RES League (league for renewable sources of energy) is not a goal in itself. The activities undertaken by local authorities are actually at the heart of it. A RES league has a number of benefits for such active villages, towns and cities.

Climate protection concerns everyone, including the local authorities. First of all, they need to know where they stand. The league is an instrument that helps them gain an overview of the present situation.

Good news! Results and rankings are an ideal way of getting their activities publicised in the press in a positive way – even if a local authority hasn’t managed to become the national champion! Being one of the top three local authorities in a particular region is certainly a good result as well.

Setting a good example. In many villages, a league makes people aware of the solar and wood power systems that exist there for the very first time. It makes it easier for solar or wood plant operators to show the public what they are achieving. Other people then decide to follow these examples and take the “daring” step of investing in a solar or wood power system themselves.

Economic upturn. Every litre of oil that does not have to be imported means that the money it would cost remains in the region. The use of renewable sources of energy saves this oil and causes new jobs to be created. Achieving a good ranking in a league enables local authorities to catch people’s attention. After all, don’t businesses prefer to settle in places with the right kind of environment?

On the front page. Just how frequently do small towns get a mention on TV or in the national press? And a positive one at that? It’s not likely to be very often. Small boroughs and villages can also step into the limelight now thanks to the league.

Part of the RES power community. The league brings people together. Representatives from local authorities meet one another at their own events or pay each other visits. They learn from one another this way. And keeping in touch with other communities participating in the league also has an encouraging effect. This can be achieved if a national organisation takes active control of a league like this – it becomes the engine that drives competition. On the following pages you’ll see exactly what has to be done.

benefits OF A RES LEAGuE for loCal authorities

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THE RuLESThe rules a league possesses are the yardstick by which com-parisons may be made. The evaluation scheme used is important in a RES league. In the existing leagues, the per-capita power or per-capita area of each member of the community has proven to be a good basic standard.On a national scale, weightings chosen for the league depend on the basic situation of the country. How many points should be awarded per watt of solar power per inhabitant? How many points do you get for a meter square of solar heating? The answers to these questions should reflect the situation in the country in question. Every organisation can decide on this itself, but it’s wise to bear the rules in mind that eight countries have now agreed on concerning the RES Champions League.“Keep it simple”: this is a key rule, just as it is in sports. It’s not about scientific accuracy, but about a ranking system that allows comparisons to be made quickly and that is easy for local autho-rities to implement.

THE DATABASEThe RES Champions League website includes a subordinate national page for every national RES league. All data manage-ment can be made within the database of the website. However, it is sometimes useful to export data to a spreadsheet program for further external data processing. On the other way, should organisations use an external database for their league, they must definitely be able to exchange data with the database of RES Champions League. Any spreadsheet program is suitable for this task, however special programs for generating databases are better as these allow managing the data more easily and get-ting a better overview of data.

wHAT DATA IS REQuIRED? wHAT DETAILS SHOuLD THE LOCAL AuTHORITIES PROvIDE?

Most of the leagues that exist only collect a small range of facts. These include the number of inhabitants living in the city, town or village in question, the surface area of the solar heat collec-tors installed (divided into glazed and unglazed collectors), the capacity of the PV systems, wood boilers and systems supplied with biomass. In addition, data on large PV plants with a power output of at least 250 kW is also obtained. Individual organisa-tions such as the Czech League for Ecological Alternatives also feel it’s important to gather information about every single system in operation. Newly created leagues in Bulgaria, Hungary and Poland share this point of view and consider that this is the best way to start (until their league is mature and overall data gets collected within municipalities). In these cases, the addresses of every installation

key elements OF A RES LEAGuE

are required. But the experience of the organisers of the German League shows this can be easily done by organisation or people within the cities, town and villages itself, too. In addition to this, the names of the organisations and/or individuals who report the local authorities’ data to the league must be recorded as well.Each local authority has to obtain information about the solar and/or biomass systems running in its own area. This entails a varying amount of effort, depending on the country in question and how much knowledge the local authorities already possess.They can also resort to using national data if needed – owing to a financial support scheme, for instance, or a legal requirement concerning feed-in tariffs. As a rule, however, collecting data is the local authorities’ own responsibility. A special information sheet published by the RES Champions League provides some advice on this issue for authorities.

CONTACT wITH LOCAL AuTHORITIESEvery organisation has already a specific network of its own. Two groups are particularly relevant for a RES league, and these only partly overlap. One of these is the local-government level. Getting in touch with the local mayor is a good thing, but local NGOs such as renewable energy associations and craftsmen’s associations should also be contacted. In all national leagues, it has proven a wise idea not to let the decision to participate depend solely on local-government decision-makers like mayors or councillors, but also to give other local actors some influence in the mat-ter. Contact with local authorities can be enhanced by offerings that go beyond mere ranking. Seminars on renewable sources of energy held especially for local-authority representatives are also popular, for instance. Even better contact can be achieved by reporting about individual local authorities that set a good example. These may be publicised in an e-mail newsletter, an in-house magazine or on a specific website. Other local authorities can learn about a league this way at the same time.

NETwORkINGA league’s success can be increased by getting in touch with further organisations – both those concerned with local affairs and those connected with renewables. This way, local-govern-ment agencies can be brought together with national NGOs that promote renewable energy. The organisation behind a league can thus act as an important link between local authorities and experts from the renewable-energy sector. Both of these actors play a significant role here: on the one hand, local authorities pro-vide an important sphere of action for climate protection, while on the other, there are the organisations that attempt to promote renewable sources of energy. Both groups of players can help to make a league well known. Close contact can be made to selec-ted organisations. The direct organisation of a league should not be borne by too many shoulders, but it does make sense to get other organisations involved and it improves people’s awareness

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of the league to boot.It’s important to bear in mind that a league is not an end in itself, though; it simply provides local authorities and their players with a forum.

GETTING THE PRESS INvOLvEDA league is an instrument of communication. It gives journalists – and particularly those working in regional media – the opportunity to provide information about renewables on a continuous basis. In general, a new solar power installation will not be newsworthy if earlier systems have already been featured in the press. But if a new one causes a local authority to improve its ranking in a league, then the press can be employed to help achieve this improvement.This is particularly likely to be the case if the journalists in mind are already familiar with the league. Regular presswork is necessary for this, like press releases, press conferences or seminars speci-fically for journalists. All sorts of occurrences can be the subject of press activities: the start of a league, a call to participate in it shortly towards the end of the season, the one hundredth or 333rd local authority to participate, the first local authority to get x points, and the end of the season and announcement of the winners, of course.If the league’s budget permits, excursions to particularly success-ful local authorities can make journalists more familiar with the league and the topic of renewable energy; bear in mind, however, that journalists frequently have little time at such events.

THE FINANCIAL SIDEState subsidies and sponsors are by far the largest source of financing for a RES league. It’s not a good idea to charge local

authorities that wish to participate a fee, though, as the hurdles that city, town and village councils have to overcome really ought to be as low as possible.Each organisation has to find out for itself how likely it is to secure a particular source of finance. The experience gained in existing leagues has shown that both things are possible, but support from sponsors doesn’t get drummed up all by itself.Businesses first have to be made aware of the fact that they will be increasing the league’s popularity as a result of their spon-sorship and will profit from the goodwill displayed in connection with contests about renewables. It’s the players in local authorities who are the primary target group for a league, so it seems a parti-cularly promising idea to get in touch with businesses that wish to improve their own contacts at the local-government level.For some organisations, however, using their own financial means is probably a more interesting option. They ought to include a 10- to 20-hour-a-week position in such cases, along with an addi-tional budget for printed material (e.g. leaflets). It’s likely that the local authorities can be persuaded to make the arrangements for the annual championship celebration.

THE ANNuAL CHAmPIONSHIP CELEBRATIONSThe length of a season in a RES league is a year, just as it is in sports leagues. Its starting point can be chosen whenever you like, so a season could run from January to December, for example, or from summer to summer. The climax of the season is marked by the annual championship celebration where the top local authorities each receive awards. This is a good opportunity to do some presswork. In particular, it’s a chance for all the local-authority players to be brought together for a pleasant occasion. This way, it’s easy to make some new contacts at an informal level. Situations like these enable the players to learn from one another, and they motivate them as well.

h Participants to Energy Cities and Climate Alliance annual conference enjoyed the mexican wave animated by project partners

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in september 2011, around 2,100 local authorities took part in the german championship. only between July and september, nearly 500 new towns and cities came into the league. so even after more than ten years, this cham-pionship is very popular.

The first national league for renewable energy was started in 2001 in Germany: the «Solarbundesliga», or National Solar League. Initially, the editors of a trade journal called Solarthemen («solar topics») only had a simple ranking system in mind for the solar power systems installed in cities, boroughs and districts. The editors had been asked to make such a comparison by some local councillors, and it met with a great deal of interest in towns and villages alike. Dozens of local authorities got involved very quickly. Within just a few months of the league taking off, the ranking process had turned into a fully blown contest, and the German environmental organization Deutsche Umwelthilfe soon became its co-organizer. So it was that the title of «Champion of the National Solar League» came to be awarded for the first time in the summer of 2001.

«Initially, it was important to talk with local authorities in person», recalls Andreas Witt, editor-in-chief of Solarthemen. «the number of participants increased steadily in the years that followed.» One reason: anyone who is able to make the requisite figures seem plausible can register a local authority – an action group, a solar power association, a workmen’s association or even the mayor or chairman of the district council in some cases. The advantage of such a flexible rule is that no resolution needs to be passed by the town or city council regarding participation in the league.

But meanwhile there are more and more mayors who support the championship. And every year a new city or town declares the invitation for the championship celebration. In 2011, the celebration was organized by Kronprinzenkoog, a small town with 882 inhabitants. And the event they set up was far more than only a celebration: three days with a regional fair on renewables, with live music, with a big solar party. About 2000 people came to this event.Very soon, the cities have accepted Solarbundesliga as a special ranking. So much so that some Federal States now use Solarbundesliga for own campaigns: the govern-ments of Saarland and Rheinland-Pfalz established special rankings for their Federal States in co-operation with the organizers of Solarthemen, including own celebrations and public relations.Indeed, this was one reason for the growing of the league during July and August of 2011. A lot of the new towns taking part in Solarbundesliga are located in Rheinland-Pfalz. The government of this federal state established one campaign to raise awareness about renewables in their cities and towns. They name it “energie komm” (www.energie-komm.de) and the solar ranking in the federal state is an important part of it. This started in October 2010. Margit Conrad, minister of environment in Rheinland-Pfalz at this time, said her state has the potential to secure 20 percent of its electricity consumption by solar energy. With the help of its solar initiative, Rheinland-Pfalz wants to reach 100.000 roofs with photovoltaic systems on it. And for the federal state, Solarbundesliga is one instrument to motivate the cities and towns to be part of this movement.

For most towns, it’s not that important to be at the top in the national ranking of the Solarbundesliga. Like in soccer, they compete themselves with towns in the same region. And there are even examples of special derbies between cities. Unsurprisingly that some regional championships have been established under the roof of Solarbun-desliga, e.g. the regional championship of Allgäu, Aller-Leine-Tal or the region of Fran-kfurtRheinMain. Suitable regional entities are welcome and encouraged to organise a

THE SOLARBuNDESLIGA IS STILL vERy POPuLAR AFTER mORE THAN TEN yEARS

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h One game at the celebration in Bürstadt: the participants constructed ducks made by hand brushes and powered by a small pv module

h To do something for the development of RES can bring fun, too. Here a samba group during the celebration of Solarbundesliga at the fair Intersolar in Munich.

h King Ludwig is very popular in some Bavarian Regions. An singer who personifies Ludwig entertained the auditorium in Rettenbach.

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THE SOLARBuNDESLIGA IS STILL vERy POPuLAR AFTER mORE THAN TEN yEARS

regional championship in co-operation with Solarbundesliga. As well as on the level of the federal states, specific public relations regarding these championships or the organisation of special events are possible on the regional level: the different entities are responsible for the local animation.

The aim is to have a competition on different levels. Every town should have the chance to come in a good position. This can be a big motivation for more action regarding renewables in towns and cities. There are city councils in Germany, which explained that they established a local financial support for solar systems because they wanted to come in a higher position in the ranking of Solarbundesliga. This was the case in Lohne for example. The city council of Fürth decided a few years ago to invest 500.000ę in an own photovoltaic system. In the decision is to read that one argument was to get in the top ranking of Solarbundesliga. Of course, for persons in charge of the city, this was not the only nor the most important reason for such an investment. But it seems to be a popular argument. Cities, which are doing something to push renewables, can attract attention with the help of Solarbun-desliga. And there are a lot of examples that German cities are using Solarbundesliga to promote themselves.The German government also noticed this. Solarbundesliga is mentioned in the German National Renewable Energy Action Plan in accordance with Directive 2009/28/EC on the promo-tion of the use of energy from renewable sources (page 41). Solarbundesliga is therefore recognised by the German govern-ment as an instrument to reach the aims of ”3x20”.

But Solarbundesliga is not a big organisation itself. In the last years, this championship was organised by Guido Bröer & Andreas Witt GbR, a small publishing company with its publica-tion Solarthemen (www.solarthemen.de). They couldn’t invest a lot of money in this championship. So what is reached now is the

result of a continuous work with cities and towns. The publishers have never planned to run this championship about ten or more years. But until cities and towns like it, the Solarbundesliga will survive!

Solar energy in Germany is popular. And it’s easy to compare cities and towns with this simple index: watts or square meters per inhabitant. For German cities and towns, this makes a big difference compared to other renewables. Of course, a lot of renewable sources are used in German cities and towns. But it’s not that popular to compare them with other renewables in a special ranking. There are only a few German cities and towns in the wood ranking established within the framework of the RES Champions League. Although the organisers of Solarbundes-liga have mentioned this ranking in special newsletters, press releases, publications like Solarthemen and Solarthemen:kom and on the website, no particular interest has been raised in the cities and towns to take part in this other ranking. Biomass is not an easy topic for such a straightforward communication based on the principle of Solarbundesliga ranking in Germany. On the one hand, bio resources are use in German cities and towns in a lot of different ways. But on the other hand, there is a lively debate in Germany on how to use biomass in a sustainable way. For a lot of people in Germany, it’s obviously not the right thing to connect this ambitious discussion with a simple ranking.

However, as other renewables (firstly biomass) were included in the RES Champions League, all German cities and towns were also willing to inform about the progress they made in pushing the use of solar, wind, hydro, geothermal energy and biomass. Representatives of municipalities who took part in the European events really liked to share experiences with their European counterparts. Andreas witt, Solarthemen

h The winners at the celebration in Rettenbach am Auerberg. Mechtild Rothe, at this time vice president of the European Parliament, came for this event to Bavaria

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vigorous and resonant... cough of whistle accompanies the Czech solar league from the beginning.

It sounds in its sound logo; sounded in chorus instead of praise fanfares in honour of the first year of the Czech solar league champions (when the League for Ecological Alternatives (LEA) gave whistles to the jury and audience as well); echoed during the kick-off of the Czech biomass league, which establishment was a demand for the participation of the Czech Republic on the project RES Champions League; and whistles nearly “demons-trated” in the Czech Parliament on 2nd June 2011 during the championship celebration of the 2nd season of the RES Cham-pions League and during its prelude, when the NGOs criticized the government policy that oppresses RES where it can.

Nevertheless, LEA at least tried to explain to foreigners that it is embarrassing how our government in the role of referee “signal-led” (read: stopped with restrictions) renewable energy sources (RES) boom in the country. Its imaginary blasts in the field of clean energy, going in the opposite direction of European trends, had the character of “unfairly imposed penalty” (e.g. retroactive taxation amounting to 26 % of capital gains from solar power plants with an output of over 30 kW, which now faces action for damages and arbitrations).Yes, during its workshops, excursions, local conferences, natio-nal workshops, in the national news on its sites, in its magazine “Solárko” and in the other media, LEA described and seriously commented, primarily positive and then negative, what was hap-pening in the RES field. Czech and European leagues came to enliven the debate. A very attractive and successful example was the granting of the title “Jumper of the year”, awarded with a plushy frog for the municipality, which jumped most in the ran-king during the year. But primarily competition and presentation of attractive news and viewpoints were concerned. So it certainly has not been left with whistles only...

TIPPING wITH PELLETSBringing people into the game with the theme of renewable energy sources - that was the goal of happening during the fair Biostyl in May 2009, where LEA kicked-off the first season of the Czech biomass league. From the stage, LEA briefly explained, what the Czech and European leagues are, what the small and large municipal wood boilers are, what sorts of fuel people can use. A special focus was made on wood pellets, which people can use at home in automatic biomass boilers. Then “hostesses” served pellets in plastic pots to the audience. People should not only look closer at them but also use them for a remarkable poll. They were supposed to put, from their own perspective, as many pellets into glass cylinders with the flags of RES Champions League participating countries as they gave them chances to be at the top ranking of the European competition during the first

season. Present public cheered for the national colours stronger than was possible reality so the Czech cylinder was filled earlier than the German one and both were filled again. Czech chances were finally evaluated the highest. The head of the “Greens” and freshly ex-Minister of the Environment Martin Bursík, who was the main initiator of the law about support of RES utilization in the Czech Republic, commented the results of the poll. He reminded the unprecedented success of the Germans in the expansion of ecological energy, making them a super-favourite of the competi-tion. Then, Pavlína Voláková, the only director-woman of a munici-pal heating plant in the country, started with the ceremonial kick-off of the biomass league – how else, with the whistles’ fanfare again. LEA concluded by giving a lot of awards to the audience : solar powered toys, organic food and small hemp plants (here as a reminder of the range of possible environmental benefits from it – e.g. just as straw bales or pellets into the boilers!).

Pv HELICOPTERS SCORE ALwAyS AND EvERywHERE

How and which way a simple explanation of the “clean energy from the sun” can be given? Every member of LEA team which found himself face to face with some children discovering solar-powered toys can tell it. Traditionally helicopters with a small PV collector, which rotates the propeller, have the greatest success. Everyone is wondering how it works even if the sun is behind the clouds. Such a simple pedagogical tool should have been “compulsory” in every school and kindergarten for a long time. Then understanding of possibilities and principles of clean energy could be in Czech Republic, and certainly in the other countries too, much further. At least LEA gave this kind of toys in addi-

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h Poll held during the kick-off of the Czech biomass league: the most pellets for the favorite candidate countries, May 2009

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tion to prize for mayors of municipalities awarded in solar league in order to be able to raise a bit more the public awa-reness.

“wE PLAy AROuND THE wHOLE FIELD BuTwE LOSE IN POwER PLAy”

LEA has not played “conflict-free” games in the Czech leagues “on the side line” or even “out” only. They have also pursued correct “move to goal” at appropriate occasions. However, unlike some par-tner NGOs in the Czech Republic, LEA does not consider as the best the fact to always struggle with the government and parliamentarians to get legislative changes and regulations.But when Czech executive power decided to stop the connection of all new photovoltaic installations and problems with subsidies for solar thermal sys-tems started, LEA workshop in Prague was the first one, where officials from responsible institutions were invited to exchange their opinions with municipali-ties’ representatives and professionals . But LEA appreciated even more, when they were the first in the country, who negotiated and performed for one year a multi-page section on solar systems and RES in the magazine “My house”, which was distributed widely in many chains of hypermarkets too. Information about the RES Champions League was naturally added.The participation of over one hundred people in their seminars, which followed the annual championship celebration of the solar league, was usual earlier. Paradoxically, LEA woke up a strong interest as the solar league was entering the RES Champions League, while at the end of the European project the interest had weakened immensely. Only events for investors in photovoltaic installations, where they hatch a plot with lawyers against the state, which destroys their eco-business, have high participation nowadays. “Whistles of officials”, supported by the lobby of energetic giants, which range themselves mainly with nuclear, coal and gas energy sectors, really stopped and have sent most of RES to “penalty box” in the country.

wHO wILL HISS OuT wHOm AND wHEN?!It is a basic fact, which resulted from a recent poll - despite the government’s media obscurantist campaign against RES, sup-ported even by a part of the journalists, who blindly, as Czech president Václav Klaus, attack anything that smells of ecology: people clearly declared that their relationship with renewable

energy is mostly positive!LEA thinks that it has contributed to it with its long-lasting ope-ration in the educational field and through the solar league of course. And it believes that the trend towards increasing RES utilization can no longer be reversed, it can be only slowed down. It is only a matter of time, when the actual slowdown in the Czech Republic will be marked tomorrow (maybe with the next elec-tion? / next nuclear accident in Europe? / next energy crisis?) as unfair.The “second wind” of the RES Champions League could help to that change in this small country in the middle of Europe. Espe-cially, if the proven team of organizers would start, for all unbe-lievers and ignorant, to draw visibly attention to municipalities or regions, where the 100% coverage of energy needs with RES utilization has been the reality already; just as good examples from neighbouring countries, where clean energy, unlike oppo-nents of RES, was not hissed out from the game about the future!karel merhaut, LEA

h Pavlina Volakova, operation manager of the heating plant of the town Zlutice, kicked off the biomass league in the Czech Republic

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CREATING EmuLATIONThe first reason that motivated the French league organizer, the CLER (Liaison commit-tee for renewable energies), to implement a RES league from 2005 in France, based on the existing model of the German Solarbundesliga, lied on a common statement of fact: nowadays, competitions attract far more the attention of people at large than cooperation projects. In order to create emulation, the CLER bet on the competitive spirit of cities, towns and villages. A lot of analogies with the football world came naturally. Football der-bies, moving people together (for better or worse), exist at all scales – so will RES derbies. RES promoters, concerned citizens can encourage or boo their municipalities depending on how much they get involved in the promotion and development of sustainable energy – just like football fans do with their teams.

CREATING CONTACTSHowever, competition is not the one and only reason of the RES league. The coopera-tion part is of course a key issue, even more when the declared objective is eventually to encourage local authorities to enter a continuous improvement process towards the sustainable management of energy. Thanks to the different activities led aside the data collection and ranking process, representatives of local authorities have opportunities to meet, invite and learn from each other: they are part of a RES community. Local confe-rences, technical workshops and study tours are as many occasions to exchange with peers and improve their knowledge and competences.Now let’s consider another perspective: the one of the organizer. Through the RES league, the CLER makes connections with representatives in medium and large cities. The orga-nisation is now considered as an important partner for them. Surprisingly, the need for RES data collection and compilation even led to reinforce internal contacts between different departments (public buildings, urban planning, environment) and between elec-ted persons and staff within large cities: these connections are an important first step towards a transversal management of the energy and climate issues. Often, the CLER has been told that his letters brought (for a little while) the RES issue at the top of the mayor’s private office agenda. A good point to facilitate somehow the everyday activities of energy and climate officers.Furthermore, the league allowed identifying front-runner communities in rural territories (Communauté de communes du Mené, Montdidier. Tramayes…), which until then were rather unrevealed at the national level, even in the community of sustainable energy promoters. Noticing missing links among voluntary rural local authorities, the CLER has started to set up a coalition of actors willing to reach energy autonomy for the sake of local development, social cohesion and environmental protection. The Communauté de communes du Mené, awarded by the French RES league, took the lead and organized the first national “energy and rural communities” conference in June 2011, with the sup-port of the CLER. The French “100% RES communities” network was launched during this event and is now growing. Hopefully, this “100% RES communities” movement will spread all over Europe in the next years, strengthening existing national initiatives (Ger-many, Italy, Austria…) and taking on board many other member states.

HIGHLIGHTING FRONT-RuNNERSA RES league is a free marketing tool for local authorities. Indeed, results and rankings allow local authorities to be publicized in the press in a positive way. For smallest towns, it is sometimes a unique opportunity to be visible in media and to “appear on the map”. This is even easier when championship celebrations produce attractive materials for media (pictures, videos…). For instance, the picture of Michel Maya, Mayor of Tramayes, jumping

h Hélène Dando, director of the environment in the City of Baie Mahault, with CLER staff in front of the TV set

h All champions of 2010 season of French league celebrate their victory

h Jacques Ravaillault, director of the regional action in the national energy saving agency Ademe, awards representatives of Macôt-la-Plagne

THE FRENCH RES LEAGuE moves aCtors in territories !

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on a trampoline in the VIP stand of the Stadium of the Alpes in Grenoble, circulated widely in magazines, blogs and newspapers. Another interesting fact is that one city can be at the bottom of the football league (or any other sport competition) and at the top of the RES league. In France, the perfect example of this situa-tion was the case of the city of Grenoble during season 2009. The brand new Stadium of the Alpes was inaugurated in February 2008, perfectly on time as Grenoble football club (GF38) was reaching the first league for the first time for 45 years. The club did pretty well during 2008/2009 season and ended at the 13th place. However, the start of 2009/2010 season was a complete “disaster” with 11 defeats in 11 matches. Hopefully, at the same time, the city of Grenoble took the lead of the French RES league in both solar photovoltaic and biomass categories. “Drop the ball, compete with renewable” seems to be the new moto of the city since then: Grenoble was awarded plenty of prizes on sustainable energy the same year and is now a recognized front-runner in France. The case of Grenoble also confirms one intuition: most cities having developed RES are also leaders in energy efficiency.

PuSHING A STEP FORwARDClearly, the intention of the CLER was to use the RES league as a tool to reach and motivate local authorities, raise their awareness and share common knowledge with them on global issues and local solutions. More precisely, the league aims at pushing them to start an energy and climate action plan. While encouraging them to count RES installations on the territory, the league motivates local authorities to know where they stand and how far they have to go. Thus the RES league is not just a game, but also a valuable database for benchmark on RES. As such, the league is refe-renced in the evaluator support guide of EEA / Cit’ergie label as a key resource for the quantitative evaluation of RES development within local authorities.Further on, the league is not just a database, but also a tool to promote support activities and offers of third parties related to renewable energies towards local authorities. The association of

towns Sydev, gathering 282 towns from Vendée département on energy issues, organized his own local award ceremony to give prizes to leading towns, in the view to mobilize all others to develop an energy and climate action plan according to a simplified and adapted methodology internally developed by the organization.In the same movement, in a near future, a precise strategy will be set up to encourage towns, especially the smallest among them, to sign the Covenant of Mayors and commit to reducing their CO2 emissions through RES and energy efficiency. This way, they will be included in a wide movement where they will be able to exchange their experiences at local, national and European levels.

LAST BuT NOT LEAST: THE FuN FACTOR !In the last year, following the example of Solarbundesliga, a global change in the communication approach of the French RES league was operated and a clear link with the ground of the action, the analogy with the football environment, was established. Football talks to everybody, whether you are an everyday follower of com-petitions or not. Without having to arouse specific associations of ideas, they rather come by themselves in people’s mind. Here is a lot of illustrations: elected persons of the association of towns SIEL were really proud to be awarded a green shirt, “the colour of Saint-Etienne”; Henri Dupassieux, deputy mayor of Chambéry, encouraged during 2011 championship celebration the players of Chambéry football team, “the Tom Thumb of the French cup, who beat two clubs playing in the first league, Monaco and Brest, and might continue during the round before the quarter finals and eventually also become champions like us”. Elected persons from Perpignan Méditerranée insisted on the fact that they were on a land of rugby (and had no particular interest in football), but were glad anyway to put on yellow and red shirts, reminding them of the “blood and gold” colours of their local rugby champions. At last, Stéphane Siebert, deputy mayor of Grenoble, was relieved to “not have to wear a blue shirt such as the one of the ceremony presen-ter, for it looked really to similar to the one of GF38”… collapsing at this very time in the football championship! yannick Régnier, CLER

h Alfred Gorré, former mayor of Albiez-le-Jeune, is very pleased about the prize awarded to his small village

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THE wARP, A BASE OF THE “PROJECT FABRIC”, CONSISTS OF THE PROJECT ACTIvITIES.

Within the Polish RES League (OZE Liga), PNEC offered its beneficiaries - Polish munici-palities - a set of extremely mobilizing project activities, such as:

in-country activities : an opening seminar in Kielce (March, 2009); local conferences in Kielce (March, 2009), Katowice (November, 2009), Niepołomice (June, 2010) and Kraków (October, 2010); workshops in Kraków (April, 2011) and Zakopane (June, 2011); the Polish RES Champions Final in Kraków (October, 2010).

european activities : a study tour to the Czech Republic (Zlin Region, October 5-7, 2010); the RES Champions League final in Dunkerque, France (May, 2010) and in Prague, Czech Republic (June, 2011); a study tour to Allendorf, Germany, by the Viess-man group’s plane (April, 2011); documentary films, promoting in Europe (and in Poland) the best Polish municipalities and their achievements in the climate protection and use of RES. To take the cascade effect (a multiplication of the know-how transfer), most of the ele-ments of the “warp” were combined with other technically attractive professional and/or RES-related events, or were located in places being RES-project case-studies them-selves. For example, the opening seminar in Kielce (March, 2009) was organized as part of the International RES Fair “ENEX”; the conference in Katowice (November, 2009) was placed in the Euro Centrum Science and Technology Park where the seminar par-ticipants could visit an energy efficient model building, producing from RES two third of consumed energy; the national award ceremony was a part of 1st RES Forum organized in Krakow which gathered about 130 participants.

THE wEFT, THE mOST ImPORTANT ELEmENT OF THE “PROJECT FABRIC” STRuCTuRE, IS THE PROJECT BENEFICIARIES.

In this case, the “weft” that is “woven” back and forth through the “warp” is the Polish

the polish “proJeCt fabriC”woven IN THE RES CHAmPIONS LEAGuE

h Silver medal for Czestochowa was handed to J.Wydmuch, Director of the City Hall, during the award ceremony in Krakow, October 2010

h Participants of local RES conference in Katowice, November 2009

h Champions of the 1st season of Polish RES Champions League, Krakow, October 2010

h W. Ordon, mayor of Nowa Deba prod of the European RES Cham-pions League award, Niepołomice, June 2010

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a well-implemented project is like a precise woven fabric, which is both beautiful (thanks to its design, weaving pat-tern and colours) and sustainable (after completion of its weaving/creation process, the fabric lives its own intensive life). there are three factors determining the beauty and the sustainability of the fabric : the warp, the weft and the appropriate weaving pattern.

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RES League beneficiaries that mean Polish municipalities. In total, in all project activities, about 160 Polish municipalities par-ticipated actively, and the number grows, as the Polish league’s biomass and solar ranking lists are still open for newcomers. Initially, the number of the Polish RES League players grew very slowly, as it was a real challenge to encourage them to sign-in, mainly because the registration process required some knowledge on the technical parameters of the RES installations working on their territories. In addition to this, lack of successes of the Polish football teams negatively affected the attractive-ness of the project and the related competition messages. Gra-dually, the Polish RES League was growing, thanks to the rela-tively simple registration procedure and intensive promotion of the project. There were many reasons why, eventually, so many Polish municipalities decided to join the Polish RES Champions League.

First, the offer is attractive and made of innovative formula and unconventional kind of the competition, referring to the football games, access to the newest technologies and technical solu-tions tested in the project partner countries and refreshing spon-taneity and informality of the project meetings. These consisted in short “sports” interviews during the 1st European Award Ceremony in Dunkerque, photo session of European champions on the National Theatre roof in Prague, with a PV installation at the background, show in football t-shirts during the RES Cham-pions League opening in Brussels and the championship cele-brations. It was always about mixing RES and football: awards in the form of solar flowers, sun-shaped-medals and cups stylized as the UEFA Cups, “We are the champions” soundtrack played to announce the award ceremony, etc.

Then, the “whisper marketing” among Mayors and Presidents worked well: participants to workshops, conferences and study-tour were enthusiastic about the events and passed sponta-neously the information on the project to their colleagues, mostly through informal conversations or discussions.

At last, the promotional potential of the project was high to reach participants and allow them promoting themselves. The project gave the opportunity for meetings, presentations and professio-nal discourses on RES with local government counterparts from Germany, Bulgaria, Czech Republic and Hungary, but also for participation in very prestigious national and European leagues. It participated in the strengthening of Mayors and Presidents’ own position as local “leaders of innovation”. Small municipalities gained even more prestige by becoming winners of the Polish (e.g.: Myczkowce, Stanówko, Kisielice) and European (e.g.: Szczawnica, Nowa Deba) leagues.

THE wEAvING PATTERN, A SPECIFIC wAy OF INTERLACING “wARP” AND “wEFT” IN THE “PROJECT FABRIC’S” CREATION PROCESS, IS THE PROJECT mANAGEmENT.

Management of such an unconventional project as the RES Champions League is a real challenge for the project team, requiring from its members a lot of dedication, everyday interre-lationship with project beneficiaries and their continuous mobi-

h Municipal Intelligent Energy Day in Gorlice, May 2009

lization towards pro-activity, opening and breaking stereotypes. PNEC performed its interactive contacts with project beneficia-ries using such management means as: - Communication and awareness strengthening through the dissemination of project’s products (booklets, website based online tools, etc.), encouraging and motivating beneficia-ries to use new RES technologies and follow best examples of the league front-runners.- Communication through information and educational events : national and international experience exchange was possible during workshops, seminars, conferences, study tours (external and organized within the project), and thanks to a twin-ning with a partner getting a greater know-how (Czech tutorial partners).- internet presence : a project webpage was established and provides all project related information, including ranking lists, examples of shining case studies, etc. It was updated conti-nuously during the project lifetime and will still be after its com-pletion.

- e-newsletter and information to the press and rele-vant institutions and individuals : it was distributed among the key country entities and stakeholders (press, public and private bodies, local networks, NGOs, etc.), in Polish, providing information on project products, events, good practices and links to project’s beneficiaries.

- Communication through opportunity-based pr : the dissemination was made through PNEC’s, Poland specific or international, communication channels (local governments or/and NGO websites, other organizations’ e-newsletters, radio broadcasts, press articles, DVD films on Polish league front run-ners). Additionally, the organization or participation in local and international professional events allowed promoting project’s objectives, results, partners and beneficiaries. - personal contacts : the purpose was to motivate potential project’s participants and stakeholders in order to explain them the project benefits. It was about networking among relevant persons working for municipalities, decision makers, non-governmental eco-trend setters, during different events, official or working meetings and/or through phone calls.

And thus, working hard and with a great devotion for over 3 years, PNEC’s team, together with project beneficiaries, have “woven” a sustainable, attractive and strong “project fabric”, the Polish RES League that at present starts living its own life, and - as real football fans – PNEC will continue supporting and pro-moting this initiative. Iwona kohoroda, PNECP

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The first purpose of “Sun championship” programme was to assist those municipalities, which already have taken steps regarding using renewable energies. The most important messages of the league were: it is worth to invest in solar energy, success of others can be repeated, efforts of a municipality for using renewables can lead positive feedback among local citizens and also muni-cipalities could learn how to use external experiences to improve their own projects.

winning with solar energy IN HuNGARy

NO EuROPEAN CONTEST wITHOuT NATIONAL LEAGuES

Another purpose was to create an information network, which provides the possibility for mayors to get or share information at the same time. Therefore in 2010 besides the competition, Energy Club published a useful collection of German best prac-tices, organized a conference and also helped the interested and frontrunner municipalities to get informed of the latest technolo-gies in the frame of a study tour to Germany. Future cooperations were formed during the tour, for instance the energy manager of Fürth offered his help to the city of Sopron and technical staff of other Hungarian participant cities changed their experiences. The dozens of published press-articles, radio and TV reports rela-ted to Energy Club conferences and awards ceremonies mean the smaller part of success for us: the real achievement is that media in general showed real interest in solar and bioenergy. It is hard to find some reliable information sources dealing with RES. Therefore it was very nice to see, that after “Breakfast with the press“ event (which focused on the presentation of the Hunga-rian solar energy sector) several detailed articles were published in different professional economic magazines.

It was a success, that by the end of the second season of the league, 165 municipalities were registered, and a great number of them participated actively: they promoted the initiative locally (e.g. on their own website) and facilitated the collection of data among citizens. There were municipality employees who counted local solar thermal panels walking around the settlement on their own or accompanied with other municipality workers. In Orosháza they posted posters about the project in several spots of the town, to stimulate the willingness to participate. Nagypáli got national fame with the European award, newspapers and magazines pre-sented the example of this extremely successful little settlement.

It was the league’s essential priority to map the use of solar and bioenergy in Hungary and to create a database. This task was

h Orosháza, the winner of the Suncrown Championship 2010 (left to right: Jozsef Varju, energy manager, Béla Németh, mayor of Orosháza, Ada Ámon, director of Energy Club)

$ The symbolic award at Napkorona Bajnoksag colours was just one of the prizes

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winning with solar energy IN HuNGARy

fulfilled partially and the completing of the database is among Energy Club long-term goals. By fulfilling the task of collecting best practices, the organisation had also the chance to collect information on energy efficiency projects in public buildings. Energy Club founded the jurys of the solar and biomass leagues, a board formed by leading energy managers, representatives of municipal associations and representative organizations of the solar and biomass sectors.

Here are the different phases of the league: promotion (PR phase, press relations, letters to municipalities), data collection (direct communication with municipalities) and announcement of results (PR phase). The duration of PR phases decreased remarkably after the first year’s promotion period. Energy Club happily noticed that regional press was fond of its programmes and covered gladly the news and interesting details. They also interviewed mayors about local importance of solar and biomass energy use on the occasion of the League.

most important experiences

Communication with municipalities is rather difficult because of the lack of information sources or a person/position responsible for energy related issues by the municipality.

Mayors are often not aware of the importance and value of the communication of a renewable energy or an energy efficiency project in the city. They do not know or feel that in some cases a solar energy investment can be used as PR announcement material as well. Energy Club highlighted the importance of pro-moting these efforts against locals, to get them involved and interested in these developments.

Local people are generally not involved in energy processes des-pite the fact that many solar systems are being installed on public

buildings. Energy Club experienced that a municipality would rarely enhance the importance of using renewable energies. But those who did did well. For instance, in the municipality of Martfę where photovoltaic panels were installed on 6 public buildings (schools, kindergartens, library), local leaders noticed the poten-tial and provided wide range of operational information about the solar systems for end users in every building. The city got national fame for that thanks to the programme.

There is no reliable database about actual use of solar energy in Hungary available for decision makers (such data, especially because of the difficulty of reaching manufacturers and because of the voluntary registration, is very hard to collect). Citizens pre-fer not to provide information if it is not compulsory. In a future phase of the program, citizens could be involved in the League with different prices, motivation, PR activity.

During the programme, Energy Club identified critical issues that could possibly be an obstacle to public renewable energy investments. The most important among these obstacles are the lack of appropriate information and the fact that municipalities operate mostly without a professional energy manager. The orga-nisation tried to fill these gaps with high standard conferences and workshops offering practical knowledge. International good practices were very popular among the interested participants, as well as the experiences of the study tour in Germany. Indeed, municipalities often have difficulties to identify, which is the good, reliable product or system that fits the local potentials.

In the second season of the solar league, Energy Club launched the biomass league too. This initiative was anticipated by the creation of a strict system of criteria (mainly with a sustainability focus). The most important goal of the biomass league is the mapping of the public biomass utilizations in Hungary. Energy Club successfully collected the data of capacity and fuel. Energy Club

h The Energy Club’s energy conference in Budapest before the second national award ceremony, May 2011

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The Bulgarian RES League was established on 10 February 2009 in Bansko. At this time, only four Bulgarian municipalities had signed the Covenant of Mayors. Now this number increased to 15. The Association of Bulgarian Energy Agencies (ABEA) aims at facilitating the smooth adaptation of municipalities to the fast-evolving energy context – specifically, to the use of renewable energy sources. For the official launching event of his national league, ABEA organized a study tour to the district heating biomass plant in Bansko and held a press conference with the participation of representatives of municipalities, energy agencies, media and RES Champions League project coordinator, Yannick Régnier. The event was covered by journalists from natio-nal TV channels, radio stations and newspapers. Bansko, the leader in the Bulgarian biomass league with its 10 MW heating plant, was the first entrant. In December 2006, the plant started functioning. The local authority chose biomass as a municipal policy for achieving energy autonomy. The heating plant supplies heat to more than 50 private buildings - hotels, residences, even a church… - as well as 20 municipal buildings, including schools, a kindergarten, the Vapsarov Museum and the hospital. The economic impact of this heating system consists in a 50% cut in energy bills of heated buildings. The environmen-tal impacts of the project are very positive in terms of emissions saved: over 4 500 t ęę2/year, over 1 300 t ęę4/year, over 1 700 t NOx/year, over 1 600 t SO2/year.

The ABEA organised its first national award ceremony for Bulga-rian front-runners during a conference on November 26, 2009, in Plovdiv. In the biomass category, the gold medal was presented to Bansko. The silver medal was awarded to Ardino, and the bronze medal went to Ihtiman. In the solar category, Paunovo (Ihtiman Municipality) was the gold medal winner. The silver medalist was

Botevo, and bronze went to Yankovo. Ihtiman collected the medals: Mayor Petkova received the gold medal in the Solar League, and the bronze medal in the Biomass League.

A few years ago, Ihtiman started an energy audit of public buil-dings heated by oil and using old systems burning solid and liquid fuel. As a result, a new concept to heat schools, kindergartens, hospitals, a community center and several administrative buildings was developed. The main objective was to build a secure and independent heating system.Biomass became real on February 20, 2009. This would not have happened without the understanding and cooperation of the mayor and the city council. The district heating plant was installed with a 3 MW boiler based on wood chips, which works completely automatically. The heating distribution system has a length of over eight kilometers and supplies over 24 buildings. The system and all processes are managed by only one operator on duty and can be controlled through the Internet. Approximately 940 tonnes of oil were saved in 2009. This is equal to a reduction of 3 360t of CO2 emissions. The benefits of the new plant in the city are indisputable: heating costs decreased to a third of the level of the period when oil was used. The conditions for private subscribers are profitable, too.

The biggest event in the first season of the RES Champions League was the First European Award ceremony on May 19, 2010 in Dunkerque (France), during the 6th European Sustai-nable Cities & Towns Conference. The ABEA is proud of the municipality of Bansko, which won second place in «small towns” division (from 5,000 to 20,000 inh.). Although having a small num-ber of inhabitants (9 212), Bansko has great ambitions to become the largest ski resort in southern Europe. In the field of tourism, they set a goal to turn Bansko into a city of green energy. The first

THE RES CHAmPIONS LEAGuE: AN INCuBATOR FOR SuSTAINABILITy CHAmPIONS IN BuLGARIA

NO EuROPEAN CONTEST wITHOuT NATIONAL LEAGuES

h The national televison TV1 held interviews during the visit of Bansko’s biomass planth (TOP) Congratulations to the champions of 2010

season of the Bulgarian leagueh (BOTTOM) Ceremony concluding the 3rd season

of the Bulgarian RES league

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steps were a hydrogen power plant with a total capacity of 7,4 MW and a 10 MW biomass heating plant. The municipality now considers the possibility to build a biogas installation.At the end of year 2010, the ABEA organised the second national award ceremony of the Bulgarian RES league. The media covered widely and a large audience attended this colorful ceremony.

The winners were:• Biomass league :

- Bansko – 10 MW biomass heating plant; - Chepelare – installation for heating on public buildings, using wood chips and wood pellets with total capacity of 1,8 MW; - Ardino – local heating of public buildings on wood chips with total capacity of 1,2 MW.

• Solar league: - Paunovo, municipality of Ihtiman – PV park Paunovo (1 MW) - General Todorov, municipality Petrich – PV park Pripechene (1 MW) - Blatetz, municipality Sliven – PV park (837 kW)

A special award for a “Consistent Policy for Sustainable Energy Development” was given to the municipality of Chepelare as the first member of ABEA’s 100-Percent Club. This Bulgarian town was on the verge of attaining full independence from fossil fuels in its heating of public buildings. By the end of next year, one hun-dred percent of its heating will be derived from renewable energy sources (wood chips and pellets). In 2008, Chepelare switched the heating system in two buil-dings – a kindergarten and a professional school – from oil to

biomass. That was a good start. On 2009, five more public buil-dings made the switch. By achieving these results, Chepelare has accomplished a great deal beyond the Europe-wide “3x20” targets for the year 2020. Next year, two schools and a munici-pal children’s complex will again convert to biomass. When this becomes reality, 69% of the energy consumption in the city – and one hundred percent of its heating budget - will be derived from renewable sources. Carbon dioxide emissions will have been reduced by sixty-nine percent from the 2006 baseline. And total energy consumption will have been reduced by 30 %. To put these accomplishments into euros, by adopting RES, Chepelare has already cut its municipal energy expenses by 44% compared to the 2006 level. And a year from now, expenses will be 57% lower than the baseline.

The municipality was a serious contender for the title of 2011 European RES Champion and behaved very well indeed: Chepe-lare became the bronze winner in the “small towns” division (from 5,000 to 20,000 inh.) during the second European award cere-mony held on 2-3 June in Prague (Czech republic).

During the three last years, the ABEA organized seven confe-rences, three technical workshops and four study tours to awarded installations in Bulgaria to attract the attention of muni-cipalities on RES. Clearly, the experience shows that most suc-cessful events are study tours. People have the opportunity to see an implemented and working project, to ask the questions about each step of its implementation and to get information about the barriers they are overcoming. milena Agopyan, ABEA

THE RES CHAmPIONS LEAGuE: AN INCuBATOR FOR SuSTAINABILITy CHAmPIONS IN BuLGARIA

h Press conference held in the town hall of Bansko as a conclusion to the kick-off event of Bulgarian RES league

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LEGAmBIENTE IDENTIFIES ‘‘100% renewable muniCipalities’’ in italy

The Legambiente annual report “Comuni Rinnovabili” was published for the first time in 2005 with the aim of analyzing the development of renewable resources in the Italian municipality’s territories, so in a context where the development of these technologies was not very strong in Italy. Through the study, Legambiente wants to monitor the development of renewable energies and disseminate the municipal best practices at national level with the aim of informing citizens, municipalities and companies that want to follow the example.The result of the analysis is obtained cross-checking data provided by the municipalities themselves through a ques-tionnaire similar to those provided by the research partners GSE (public body that provides incentives to renewable energy development), ENEA (Research Institute) and by numerous companies and study of the sector.Through the processing of these data, Legambiente draw up charts based on the power or extension of technologies in relation to the number of inhabitants in order to highlight the better examples of installations able to respond to the energy needs of families. For each of the renewable resources studied (solar thermal and photovoltaic, wind power and mini wind power, solid biomass, biogas, geothermal heating and high and low enthalpy), the best examples in the development of these technologies are highlighted from a quantitative point of view.

Moreover, the most important prize is the “100% Renewable Municipality” prize, that awards municipalities that through the new renewable technologies (excluding the great historical works such as geothermal and hydroelectric) can produce more heat and electricity than resident families need. This prize is based not only on quantitative parameters but also on qualitative parameters. In this way it is possible to calculate (theoretically) the energy contribution that each source gives to the municipality and at the same time it is possible to make a comparison with the real needs of resident households. The final result is a ranking based on the percentage of energy needs (heat and electricity) covered by the new renewable energies, excluding geothermal or hydropower energies.

Because the aim of the analysis is to highlight how the mix of renewable sources can empower large and small municipalities, in this ranking we analyze only those municipalities that have on their territory at least 4 different technologies.In the years, Legambiente has been able to take a census of 100% of Italian municipalities. Therefore the report “Renewable Municipalities” can be considered as a national reference not only for citizens but also for municipalities, provinces and regions and associations who want to know the real development of dif-ferent renewable technologies in the Italian territories.Thanks to this prize, Legambiente has awarded almost 20 muni-cipal governments that can be considered self-sufficient, com-pared to domestic consumption. Among these, there are the examples of Prato allo Stelvio, Dobbiaco and Brunico which have

h  2011 edition of the «Renewable municipalities» report prepared by Legambiente

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The Association for the Promotion of Renewable Energies (APERe), in partnership with the Bond Beter Leefmilieu, has kicked-off the first season of the Renewable Energies Cham-pionship in October 2011. This action awards the municipali-ties for their sustainable energy policies. The season lasts five months: this is the allowed time to get a maximum number of points, thanks to: 1/ achieved and on-going actions on sustai-nable energy, 2/ existing renewable energy installations and 3/ the support of their citizens.

From the first of October, Belgian towns compete to win the title of “RES Champion”. Three different divisions have been defined according to the number of inhabitants: “less than 10,000 inha-bitants”, “from 10,000 to 50,000 inhabitants” and “more than 50,000 inhabitants”. Municipalities have five months to assess their sustainable energy policy, reinforce their actions and get the support of their population. Objective criteria have been defined and allow evaluating and comparing efforts of the participants. All municipalities can therefore win! APERe and the Bond Beter Leefmilieu bet on a win-win approach: against an active invol-

vement of the municipalities, they provide them with a technical support, adapted tools and the possibility to benefit from external consultancy to the participating municipalities.

A specific feature of the Belgian championship is the strong role given to the citizens: they are invited to support their town voting for it on the championship website. Every vote counts and increases the score of the municipality. This is a unique and ori-ginal way to act for sustainable energy and assist the initiatives of one’s town. Even if the town has not registered by itself to the championship, citizens can have their word: if more than 1% of the population vote for their town, the organizers will contact the municipality and encourage it to join the movement, considering the positive pressure put by this popular initiative.

A lot of prizes will be given to the municipalities but also citizens: renewable energy installations, a legal support from a specialized law office, free consultancy to set up a Energy Performance Contracting for public buildings… Jade Charouk, APERe

BELGIAN muNICIPALITIES AND THEIR CITIzENS take up a Challenge: win the title of res Champion!

paved the way in pushing many other Italian municipalities to move in the same direction.

Every year, the report is presented in a national conference where Legam-biente awards the best 5 territorial policies, not only from the point of view of quantity standards but also quality standards, thus promoting the best policies for developing these technologies. Two of this five prizes are for the “100% Renewable Municipalities” while the other three prizes are reserved for those munici-palities that have implemented good policies in one sector or that have implemented a single technology in a good way. Thanks to this, the small town of Tocco da Casauria (PE) in September 2010 was mentioned on the first page of the New York Times as “100% Electric City” that is to say a municipality that thanks only to the wind plants is able to produce more electricity than needed to resident families.The latest innovation developed by Legambiente and linked to the report, was the first Renewable Municipalities Tour, through which 5 municipal administrations were invited to participate in a

tour of one day in the “100% Renewable Communities”, with the chance to meet the mayors and technicians who know all the “secrets” of the plants. The aim of the tour is to create a network where the municipal government can exchange ideas and collaborations in order to develop projects on their territories. katiuscia Eroe, Legambiente

h  2011 edition of the «Renewable municipalities» report prepared by Legambiente

h  Symbolic prizes awarded to Italian municipalities during the press conference presenting the annual report

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In order to participate in the RES Champions League, a city, town or village in Europe has to join a national RES league. Leagues have already been established in eight countries: Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy and Poland. The RES Champions League is open to more national leagues!The following pages give useful input to national organisations willing to start a RES league in their country and join the European RES Champions League as a partner. This methodological information identifies the basic prerequisites to start a league, explains the spirit and key principles of such an action and gives some precious tips on how to make a league attractive for local authorities. A focus is also made on the national championship celebration, the annual climax of a league, and on the features provided by the joint website of all partners.The current consortium of partners gives a good overview of the diversity of organisa-tions who are able to deal with the animation of a league: Solarthemen (Germany) are two journalists, CLER (France) is a network of energy professionals, Legambiente (Italy) is a large environmental NGO, PNEC (Poland) is a network of municipalities, ABEA (Bulgaria) is a network of local energy agencies…Therefore, candidate organisations for the creation of a new league can be of any kind: national energy agencies, national networks of local energy agencies, national networks of municipalities, specialised NGOs or companies (in the fields of sustainable energy and environment), specialised journalists… What counts more is a strong motivation rather than the legal status. As a member of RES Champions League network, the newcomers will benefit from free support from project coordinator and partners and a cheap access to RES Champions League website (creation of a “virtual” national website in the European one) and other existing communication tools (newsletter, leaflet…).

National RES leagues started on their own in Germany, Czech republic and France, even before RES Champions League was created. Thanks to the methodological and communication tools developed by the consortium of partners and their “live” support, it is now far easier to join the network. Don’t wait to enter the competition: “play now”! If you want to know more about the RES Champions League and the conditions to start a national RES league, you can contact the coordinator of RES Champions League or any organisation responsible for existing leagues (see the “contact” page).

start a national res league IN yOuR COuNTRy AND JOIN RES CHAmPIONS LEAGuE

PLAy NOw !

h LEA hostess among participants of the Czech biomass-league kick-off in Prague, May 2009

h   International audience paying careful attention to the presentation of the Czech situation on energy issues during the 2nd European ceremony in Prague, June 2011

h Yannick Régnier, project coordinator, commented the presentation of the Covenant of Mayors movement during Energy Cities and Climate Alliance annual conference, April 2009

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start a national res league IN yOuR COuNTRy AND JOIN RES CHAmPIONS LEAGuE

Every league began with the decision of an organisation to really get involved in it. People’s experience of the leagues that have been around for a while now has shown that leagues actually grow more attractive over the years. More and more local authori-ties gradually join the league, and as the popularity of renewable sources of energy grows, these gain momentum as topics in these regions. Any organisation that wish to set up a league for renewables should ready themselves for a long-term project. This is definitely worthwhile.

It must be possible to keep the ranking up to date as frequently as possible and publicise this score right from the start. You can use the RES Champions League website to do this. Relatively little effort is required to set up a subordinate national page on the existing website. A number of pieces should be translated into the country’s official language(s), though.

As soon as this basic structure has been set up, a national organi-sation can address the general public and call for participation in the league. It ought to be clear from the outset when the first sea-son will end. An appealing introductory event (also named “kick-off” event) can give a league the initial swing it needs to get going. This calls for a considerable amount of creativity, mind you: an ini-tial press conference possibly involving a well-known personality from show business or the sports world, an accompanying confe-rence on the use of renewable sources of energy in cities, towns

and villages, a bet between the first local authorities to participate or a fun event for children. If this sort of thing catches the media’s attention as well as the local authority’s and the local population’s eye, then the first steps taken have been a great success.

It’s definitely a good idea to contact a number of pioneering local authorities well ahead of the event. You can then start with the first ranking procedure right away, and the example set by the local authorities will encourage others. Make sure that the ranking is kept up to date right from the beginning, of course.

In the weeks and months that follow, you can build on this foun-dation and keep the new league in people’s minds with press releases about the latest developments. This is easier if you cooperate with interested media that are able to produce regular features about the ranking and contest. It could be very helpful to have one regular media partner from the very beginning, who is close to and familiar with municipalities.

At the same time, you can get in touch with other organisations concerned with local authorities and renewables if such contacts haven’t been made already. These parties can be involved in the movement by making them members of a league committee, which provides advice on the national rules, for example. This way, a network of renewable energy actors and local authorities will be created.

starting A RES LEAGuE

h Project team after the 2nd Award Ceremony on the roof of the National Theatre service building in Prague, June 2011

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Both in football and in renewables, there wouldn’t be a Cham-pions League without the national leagues. As in the sports world, both individuals and local authorities are somehow driven by the competitive spirit and want to make comparisons that are as direct as possible. Sports fans often feel it’s more important to know where their team currently is in the national league – like in football. National RES leagues are important for making direct comparisons. Above all, though, they’re easier to get across to people. A league is a good opportunity to obtain information and get local authorities moving. This can only be done easily among people speaking the same language. That’s why it is crucial that a lot of activities take place in the participants’ own country. The organisations responsible for a national RES League are aware of the prevailing conditions regarding the use of renewables – not just the legal requirements, but people’s mentalities and attitudes.

National leagues go down well. Cities, towns and villages all par-ticipate in them. Over 2,000 of them are in the oldest league – Germany’s National Solar League – and these are home to more than a third of Germany’s population. What’s more, magazines, newspapers, radio and TV channels take up the topic as well.

A few prerequisites have to be satisfied to maintain this degree of coverage in the long term, however: the organisations have to have time for a league and provide enough manpower for it. This is easier for organisations that are already in touch with journa-lists, the press and know the right people within the local autho-rities. It’s these two groups that need to be contacted primarily. Local players such as mayors, associations and skilled craftsmen need to be won over for the league as they are the ones who will be collecting all the data and challenging the competition. When a league is first started, it’s wise to contact a number of well-known pioneering local authorities directly and ask them to join it.

Others are sure to follow once the competition is up and running. Activities should also be planned nationally, though, to make more local authorities aware of the league. Journalists/the media are important for publicising the contest on a wide scale and increa-sing its relevance in the eyes of the decision-makers in local authorities. Press releases have to be written regularly and direct contact has to be made with journalists to promote the league. It’s very good to have media partners on your side, which cover a league with reports continuously.

Within an organisation, various positions have to be created and filled, depending on how fast the league is to be set up, and a specific person must be put in charge of data maintenance. The local authority players collect their data locally and report it to the league using a web-based form, for example. Obviously, it’s impossible to check all the details, but the plausibility of the data should always be examined. In general, anything that is unclear can be sorted out by asking about it directly.

A database is necessary for collecting the data. These tasks can be dealt with via the RES Champions League website, which

basiC prerequisites TO START A RES LEAGuE

contains a database of its own. Some national organisations feel it is useful to process their data in an additional separate database first and then transmit data regularly to the website of RES Champions League. Collecting, processing and transmitting data is a key task in every league. This is why people with sound knowledge of databases and the Internet are useful in an organi-sation responsible for a national RES league.

People familiar with public relations (PR) are equally important to make the league a success – people who know how to write a press release and arrange a public event, such as the cham-pionship celebration to honour the national champions.

In general, it ought to be possible to run a league well by working on it around 10 to 20 hours a week, all in all. In the beginning, you will need time to establish the league (website, partnerships, press work). Then as soon as participant numbers rise, you will need time for administration while always keeping on commu-nicating. As a general comment, it is possible to work less on the league, too, but then the effectiveness of the action could be reduced.

Once these basic requirements have been met, it’s quite easy to start up a national league. A public call for participants should be made over as many communication channels as possible. At the same time as that, it’s a good idea to contact directly some local authorities that are pioneers in the field. When doing this, a firm date should be stated for the end of the first season on which the winners will be determined on the basis of existing cumulative figures. The local authorities should also be encouraged to report any current data whenever they can. The league’s organisation can employ various intermediate steps for PR purposes, such as announcing the 100th local authority to participate in it.

PLAy NOw !06

h During the excursion after the 2nd Award Ceremony people visited the unique solar cooling system with vacuum collectors (hotel Duo in Prague)

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basiC prerequisites TO START A RES LEAGuE

A RES league can only work with the support of local authorities – the league is only a stage and they are the stars who perform on it. The cities, towns and villages also need to be made aware of the advantages of joining the league, however.

Some of the local-authority players are interested in comparisons with other towns and cities – they want to know exactly where they stand. But this won’t be enough to persuade other local authorities to participate; they need to know how the league will benefit them.

CONVINCING LOCAL AUTHORITIES TO TAKE PART: KEY ARGUMENTSRenewable sources of energy result in economic benefits for local authorities: more money stays in the region since it does not flow out of it to buy fossil fuels; the installation of power genera-tion systems that use renewable sources of energy creates new jobs. A number of local authorities have already developed activi-ties of their own in this area. But how do they manage to publicise these and do so again and again? Having a good rank in the league documents the fact that local authorities are also playing a prominent role in fields that are shaping the future.

Being part of a RES league can also have benefits if it’s regarded as a marketing tool for promoting the image of a town. The natio-nal media, in particular, tends not to report about small towns and villages very much, but a top position in the RES league would definitely gain them some attention. Examples from existing lea-gues show that daily newspapers and television channels follow

up the successful achievements of local authorities.

Every local authority profits from the coverage given to its local solar and wood energy systems as a result of participating in the league. Administrators in cities, towns and villages frequently don’t know how many RES systems are actually in operation. But they need this figure for the league. And when this information is determined, people become aware that RES power systems are actually well-established technologies. Local citizens then rea-lise that they can follow the example set by others. This creates new areas of activity for craftsmen and is a prerequisite for local authorities to attain the climate-policy goals already in place. A positive process has started up.

Participating in a league is also a way for people to create connections. Local authorities can then become part of the RES community, which will help them get in touch with other people. The annual championship celebrations are an ideal opportunity to strengthen your existing contacts in an informal way and also learn from others, which saves you time and money into the bar-gain.

And last but not least, a league is like a sport, adding an ele-ment of fun and enthusiasm to life in the community. Competition with others can have an enlivening effect upon people. Seen in this light, climate protection is not solely a worrying issue; in fact, carefully documenting the increasing number of RES systems in use – the technologies of the future – can actually create a spirit of optimism.

mAkING A LEAGuE attraCtive FOR LOCAL AuTHORITIES

h Representatives of Bulgarian municipalities are proud to display the diplomas received to award their titles of 2010 champions

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The national championship celebrations or championship celebra-tions are an important element in a RES league. They aren’t just an excellent opportunity for presswork. Most of all, they are a chance for local authorities to get together and get to know each other. The best local authorities in each category receive an award at the ceremony. The actual award ceremony can also be combined with a confe-rence on the use of renewable sources of energy in cities, towns and villages. Other accompanying events are possible as well, of course. One of the things that plays a great role is the venue for the award ceremony. If the local autho-rity in question happens to be a pioneer in the field, then obviously you could pay the community a visit together with repre-sentatives from other local authorities and find out more details on location. The end of the championship celebrations should be marked by a party in a friendly atmos-phere, which gives people the opportunity to chat together informally.

The choice of venue is a key requirement for any championship celebration. One the one hand, the city, town or village in question ought to be attractive to visitors. On the other hand, the municipality should really have a genuine interest in hosting the award ceremony. If this is the case, then it will also be prepared to play an active role in the arrangements (including a financial one), which starts with offering

ORGANISING a national Championship Celebration

PLAy NOw !06

and booking the actual venue for the cere-mony and celebration. In most cases, it’s advisable to involve the local authority at this point, providing it is prepared to help, since it knows what venue is best and why.

It’s certainly wise to encourage local authorities to add a regional touch to the event in the form of local food, music or local ways of celebrating. Experience has shown that this is possible in existing lea-gues and that local authorities set great store by providing the location for such an event. You may find that this isn’t prac-ticable in the first few years of a league, however – it’s just a question of time before the league becomes well-known. Obviously, the decision to create a formal atmosphere for the award ceremony or a lively, jovial one partly depends on the national situation. There are no limits to your creativity here. You can even invite well-known personalities to attend this event if you wish to.

The championship celebrations or championship celebra-tions mark the culmination of the season at the European level as well. The people involved meet up in alternating countries – the organisers of the national leagues and, most of all, the local authorities. How they stage the RES Cham-pions League award is up to the individual organisers.

h Jean-Pierre Ruffier, first deputy mayor of Chambéry, is awarded a 2011 European prize in Prague, June 2011

hYannick Régnier, project coordinator, congratulates the Mayor of Brunico, European champion in the Small cities division

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ORGANISING a national Championship Celebration

An important communication tool of the RES Champions League is its website, www.res-league.eu. This is where all the informa-tion provided by the countries involved in the league is pooled. The European website essentially consists of the following:

- General information, news and reports about the RES Cham-pions League and news and reports on the use of renewable sources of energy in cities, towns and villages in each of the countries (“best practices”)- Rankings at a European level in the form of a database that is constantly updated: the scores achieved by the local authorities participating in the league can be viewed at any time this way.- National rankings and, thanks to an efficient search tool, any sub-ranking upon geographical location or technology.

This last point is not dealt with uniformly by the participating countries; some of them create their own websites for their national leagues and maintain them independently of the RES Champions League. In addition to this, they provide content for the European website and keep the data provided by their own local authorities up to date. Other organisations make use of the entire range of features provided on the European website.

Using a content management system (CMS), each national orga-nisation is able to add content to the European website and edit it at its own discretion (consequently, they bear full responsibility for any changes they make). Access is granted via user accounts (protected by passwords). No computer experts are required for

this, but the people who work with the CMS should get progres-sively familiar with the system. This equally applies to importing data for ranking purposes.

Above all, the website makes it possible to collect data provided by the local authorities. You can submit data through a web form on the website. The national organisation responsible for the league monitors, corrects and approves the data for release. This way, the database on the RES installations is constantly kept up to date – in line with the frequency of local authorities’ activities.

The pages of the website are in English and the countries’ res-pective national languages; the organisations participating in each of the countries are responsible for any translations requi-red.All in all, the RES Champions League website provides a pool of ideas and promotes networking. At the same time, the ranking given to a local authority shows visitors how it has developed with respect to solar and wood energy.

Dedicated domain names have been created for different natio-nal pages of RES Champions League website. They can be used as PR tools at European and national levels. The various web pages available offer services to local authorities that provide them with important information. Anyone around the world can call up ranking details – and journalists also have a simple oppor-tunity to report about the latest developments in the competition.

IT CORNER : THE FEATuRES OF RES CHAmPIONS LEAGuE website anD Database

h  Municipal Intelligent Energy Day in Gorlice, May 2009

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g e r m a n ySOLARBUNDESLIGA

www.solarbundesliga.deSolarthemen - Guido Bröer & Andreas Witt GbR

Bültestr. 70b - 32584 Löhneredaktion@solarthemen.de - Tel. + 49 5731 8 34 60

C z e C h r e p u b l i CSOLARNI LIGA

www.solarniliga.czLEA (League of Ecological Alternatives)

Bezrucova 605 - 276 01 melniklea@ecn.cz - Tel. + 420 723 573 738

f r a n C eLIGUE ENR

www.ligue-enr.frCLER (Comité de Liaison Energies Renouvelables)

2, rue Jules Ferry - Bât. B - 93100 montreuilcontact@ligue-enr.fr- Tel. + 33 1 55 86 80 04

p o l a n DLIGA OzE

www.ozeliga.plPNEC (Polish Network “Energy-Cities”)

Stawkowska 17, pok 30 - 31-016 krakówbiuro@pnec.org.pl - Tel. + 48 12 429 1795

Climate Alliance

EUROPERES CHAMPIONS LEAGUE

www.res-league.eu - contact@res-league.eu

CONTACTS

h u n g a r yNAPkORONA BAJNOkSáG

www.napkoronabajnoksag.huEnergiaklub Climate Policy Institute And Applied Communications

Szerb u. 17-19 - 1056 Budapestenergiaklub@energiaklub.hu - Tel. + 36 1 411 35 26

b u l g a r i aLIGA VEI

www.liga-vei.netABEA (Association of Bulgarian Energy Agencies)

44 Oborishte str. - 1505 Sofiaeap@liga-vei.net - Tel. + 359 32 62 57 56

i ta lyCAMPIONATO SOLARE

www.campionatosolare.itLegambiente Onlus

via Salaria 403 - 00199 Romainfo@campionatosolare.it - Tel. +39 06.86268402

b e l g i u mCHAMPIONNAT ENERGIES RENOUVELABLES

www.championnat-er.beAPERe (Association pour la Promotion des Energies Renouvelables)

Rue Royale, 35 - 1000 Bruxellesinfo@championnat-er.be - Tel. +32 218 78 99

Deutsche Umwelthilfe e.V.www.umwelthilfe.de

Fritz-Reichle-Ring 4 - 78315 Radolfzell - GermanyTel. + 4977 32 99 95 30 - info@duh.de

Climate Alliancewww.klimabuendnis.org

Galvanistr. 28 - 60486 Frankfurt am main - GermanyTel. + 49 69 71 71 39 12 - europe@climatealliance.org

wITH THE SuPPORT OF

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