Have you ever heard about EUCF?
Another successful online regional event for PROSPECT2030
Have you ever heard about EUCF? On the 18th of June, more than 140 people, belonging to local authorities staff, energy agencies and research institutions had the opportunity to learn about this new facility set up by the European Commission for local authorities committed in the energy transition. The webinar has been jointly organized by Piemonte Region and Polytechnics of Torino in the framework of the Interreg Central Europe project PROSPECT2030. The webinar has been supported by the national network of Municipalities (ANCI) and the National Alliance of Mountain Municipalities (UNCEM).
The European City Facility has been presented by the National Contact Point of the initiative (Coordinamento Agenda 21): Set up under the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme, the EUCF will unlock the amazing potential that local authorities have to build comprehensive sustainable energy investment programmes. The facility, thus, supports local authorities and their groupings with tailor-made, fast and simplified financial support (in the form of 60.000€ lump sums) and related services to enable municipalities to develop relevant investment concepts related to the implementation of actions identiftied in their climate&energy action plans. Examples of former projects (2020Together http://www.cittametropolitana.torino.it/cms/ambiente/risorse-energetiche/progetti-energia-sostenibile/2020together and STEPPING https://stepping.interreg-med.eu/) implemented by Piemonte Region in partnership with Environment Park have been presented in order to show the audience where a EUCF investment concept could be addressed.
Beforehand, the webinar provided an overview of PROSPECT2030 project and focused on the data provision service that the Region set up for supporting the sustainable energy planning and monitoring activity at local level. Energy consumptions for gas and electricity have been collected for the 1.200 municipalities of the Region and are provided for free with a standardized and robust data processing procedure (https://www.regione.piemonte.it/web/temi/sviluppo/sviluppo-energetico-sostenibile/dati-energetici-disposizione-dei-comuni). This is a first concrete output of PROSPECT2030 that is supposed to enlarge and strengthen the already wide Covenant of Mayors network.
