UNDP and GIZ jointly promote energy efficiency of public buildings in Serbia

In order to further facilitate Serbia’s potential to save energy in public buildings through implementing energy efficiency measures, UNDP and GIZ signed a memorandum of understanding to join forces in this endeavor.

The memorandum was signed by GIZ Country Director for Serbia Gerhard Sippel and the UNDP Deputy Resident Representative Steliana Nedera. These organizations shall jointly collect data on energy consumption in buildings such as schools, kindergartens and health centers, and compile them in a single database.

“At present, this base has several thousand buildings and the plan is to cover all of them. That means 15 to 20 thousand buildings could be controlled,” assistant minister of mining and energy Miloš Banjac told reporters after the signing.

This database will help the Ministry and local governments make plans for renovation and investments related to the energy efficiency of buildings, and so far more than 7.000 questionnaires on energy consumption have been collected from administrative buildings, schools, kindergartens and other public facilities.

The primary activity of GIZ will be collecting data in the field, while the UNDP will provide user training, data entry, management, maintenance and development of the Information System for Energy Management (ISEM), through which the data is entered. Both organizations have been conducting projects in the field of energy efficiency of public buildings since 2015.

Serbia introduced the energy management system this year, in accordance with the Law on the efficient use of energy. The most important activities of the system include collecting and processing data on energy consumption in the public sector  carried out by energy managers. It is also obligatory for national and local administrative bodies and institutions, municipalities and cities with more than 20.000 inhabitants, companies that use more energy than the amount prescribed by the Government and other public services that use public buildings. They are obliged to appoint the required number of energy managers, create plans for energy efficiency, implement energy efficiency measures, submit annual reports on primary energy consumption and implement the planned energy savings goals prescribed by the Act on determining the annual energy saving targets.