The Interreg-Europe project ZEROCO2 aims at proposing policies and measures that could be implemented in new and existing public buildings, on a regional or national level to improve their environmental sustainability and mitigation of climate change risk and accelerate the implementation of EU Directives in this regard.
28 March 2018 marked the end of the first stage of the project where sixteen policy action proposals have been submitted to the relevant policy advisors, the Energy and Water Agency and the Building Regulation Office, during a conference that was held at the University Residence.
Such policies will contribute towards greening the building sector through enhancement of various eco-friendly energy technologies, services and business models. They have been carefully studied and feedback was received from many stakeholders, both in the public and private sectors throughout the past two years. If implemented, such policy measures can prove to be pro-business, because they can mobilise certain industries that have long been forgotten and open new markets for energy efficient products and services, thus boosting the economy and employment, while bringing Malta in the limelight in terms of energy efficiency and carbon mitigation initiatives.
The measures were divided into soft and fiscal measures as follows:
- Provide training and template/s of how energy performance contracts should be put in place.
- Provide a one stop shop for all financial incentive measures and to provide technical advice to the general public who would like to achieve NZCO2EB.
- Provide training and continuous professional development to architects, engineers and project managers on aspects of design, technologies, life cycle costings and energy performance certification to facilitate the transition to NZCO2EB.
- Provide a guide on best-practice methods to renovate public buildings according to their specific sector, such as schools, offices, health centres and housing blocks to facilitate their transition to NZCO2EB status.
- Provide non-biased information campaigns using social media on the most effective measures including energy management practices that can be applied for buildings in Malta to reduce CO2 emissions. The campaign should also focus on the role of energy performance certification so as to improve the public perception on the certification and enhance their utilisation.
- Provide indicators for energy performance levels for different building categories, based on statistical analysis of actual registered EPCs, to enable one to compare between the EPC of a property and the prevailing benchmark.
- Improve the public perception of energy performance certifications by encouraging banks to calculate maximum loan limits for potential property buyers based on the energy performance of the property.
- Consider introducing a mandatory minimum renewable energy share in new and renovated buildings.
- Provide fiscal incentives or tax rebates for contractors who opt to build new buildings of high efficiency rating beyond the minimum energy requirements of Technical Document F.
- Revise solar water heating grant to regenerate interest in solar water heating;
- Provide bundled incentives combining two technological options such as PVs/SWH, PVs/Heat pump for existing buildings and incentives that combine envelope improvement with RES such as roof insulation/PVs or roof insulation/SWH or roof insulation and shading/heat pump for existing buildings to be renovated.
- Provide grants to install solar water heaters and/or heat pumps for domestic hot water for the hospitality sector (hotels/ restaurants), residential people homes and sports complexes;
- Provide incentives for solar shading and/or spectrally selective coatings and films for the commercial building sector;
- Extend government/private communal solar farm projects to households who despite having a roof cannot install PVs due to solar shading. Another possibility can be to extend communal farms to commercial buildings (such as many restaurants) that do not own a roof top.
- Renovate 5 % of the public housing sector to reduce their CO2 emissions by 30 % or more by end of 2020.
- Devise projects to improve the energy performance rating of public authority buildings, such as Ministries, public offices, health centres and public schools and sports complexes.
The conference was addressed by Hon. Dr. Aaron Farrugia, Parliamentary Secretary for EU Funds and Social Dialogue, where he stressed the importance of the Interreg Europe programme, which aims at supporting local and regional governments to better implement policies that will lead to a more fruitful outcome for utilising the European Regional Development Fund. It also fosters collaboration between regions in order to enhance sharing of experience and best practices, as well as to improve communication and share good policy success stories across Europe.
He noted that at least two good practices have been identified and recognised by the Joint Secretariat to be worthy of sharing on the Interreg Europe platform, namely the Positive Renewable Energy and Zero Carbon Emissions Project for the deep renovation of St. Nicholas College Siggiewi Primary School and the Heat Pump Water Heaters Grant for Dwellings. Also, the Communal PV Farm at Fiddien Water Reservoir, Rabat, which has enabled and empowered a number of homes to become near zero energy dwellings.
The next two years of the project will be dedicated to monitoring the implementation of the policy action plan, as required by the Interreg Europe programme.
For further information, please contact Dr. Charles Yousif at charles.yousif@um.edu.mt or by phone on 23407831, 79538123
Links to further information may be found online.