Eordea (Ex Ptolemaida)

District heating Cie sees its task as energy provider & not in helping reduce the demand.
Energy is delivered as cheap as possible and this is conflicting with the message that saving energy would be good for financial reasons. Available  individual metering is not used to steer individual energy use.
Many energy projects are pilot projects based on external financing (subsidies). No internal financial tools (revolving funds, energy contracting, CO2 certificates) have been developed.
No indicators about housing energy aspects.
Only monitoring instrument is the household bills for thermal energy by Municipal District Heating Cie.

Energy policy and legislation

1^st Greek city to sign Covenant of Mayors and to set itself high goal for energy-saving & energy efficiency 20-20-20 and realize a Local Action Plan which contains (small scale) restorations of municipal buildings & public lighting, to achieve energy efficiency & decrease of CO2 emissions (~ by 260 000 tons).
City became member of Energie Cités network.
Legislative framework regarding Energy efficiency is only valid on new buildings or existing buildings that have to be renovated & are > 1000 m2.
Since 6 months, a new law for feed-in tariffs has taken effect in Greece, allowing individuals to install photovoltaic panels onto their roofs of up to 10 Kwp and sell generated power for 0,55 Euros/KWh.

Actions on energy matters

Existing actions

City Energy Efficiency Plan with specific actions for public buildings & lighting, but no links made between agreed 20-20-20 goals & actions. Construction of energy-bioclimatic Town Hall and bioclimatic renovation of AEVAL's building. 'Smart Lamp' project leading to optimum use of public lighting, should save >35% energy.
Since last year: ongoing process to raise public awareness through mass media publications (newspapers, press releases, TV shows,...), congresses & participation to external events (e.g.: Ecology-innovation-Energy days during European Sustainable Energy week).
City is keeping price of district heating deliberately low to raise attractiveness of net connection (done on a voluntary basis)., but no guarantee that this could continue since city is dependent on PPC & global energy pricing.
New subsidy of 40% for energy efficiency by Ministry of Environment, Energy & Climate Change (outer cel insulation, windows replacement...).
Some banks have launched long term loans for financing of energy efficient improvements + installation of solar panels at low interest rate (still high)

Planned actions