Energy: study tour of a Turkish delegation at ENEA

In the Republic of Turkey, the Ministry for Environment and Urbanisation is entrusted with energy efficiency for the tertiary and residential building sector, while other areas are under the competence of different Turkish governmental institutions.

A delegation composed of the Deputy Secretary Mr Mücahit DEMİRTAŞ, the Director of General Directorate of Vocational Services Mr Selami MERDİN and several ministerial officers, paid a visit to ENEA, on April 29, 2016, in Rome, to get information on the policies and measures implemented in Italy, with a special focus on the building sector.

They have been welcomed by ENEA’s President Prof. Federico Testa and Mr Roberto Moneta, Head of the Unit for Energy Efficiency (UTEE), that in Italy acts as the Italian Agency for Energy Efficiency. UTEE’s staff provided exhaustive information during the 29 April workshop, thanks to which basis were put for future collaborations.

At state, what’s worthwhile to remark is the increasing requests for events, as the above one, in the EE sector by foreign delegations.

UTEE has been meeting also other countries’ experts in the last year and joint initiatives have stemmed, some of which are already under realisation. Requests come from either the EE  foreign stakeholders but also by the general directions of the EU Commission, the ones promoting and supporting cooperation with neighboring and non-European countries in the energy and environmental field.

The visit of the Turkish Colleagues was supported by a technical assistance project, financed by the EU IPA program (Instrument for Pre-Adhesion) for the improvement of the regulatory framework in the field of energy efficiency of the buildings and on its actual implementation. Italy has been selected to facilitate the transfer of the European best practices because, for cultural, organizational and climatic conditions, can be a good example for Turkey.

The issue is: where such a breakthrough of ENEA as a model of EE agency has been provided by?

Indeed, the interaction with foreign entities has improved, either of public, private and even supranational nature,  with a resulting wider visibility of the National Agency for Energy Efficiency. By far, it seems attention is coming also from extra-EU countries, towards which the European Commission is increasing processes of technical assistance and institutional/sectoral capacity building, thanks to instruments such as TAIEX, IPA, etc.

Or maybe EE, so far considered not enough…sexy as a topic, has become more appealing?  Is there, perhaps, an Italian way to deliver Energy Efficiency? Though focussing on the building sector, the wide range of information on Italian policies and measures described by ENEA to the Turkish colleagues aroused the most interest. Actually it seems that some Italian measures are setting the landmark in implementing EE in different sectors: the White Certificate Scheme, i.e. energy efficiency titles (TEE) mostly devoted to the industrial sector, the Thermal Account for the retrofitting of the Public Sector Buildings, the 65% Fiscal Deduction system (mostly for privates but not only), the energy management training and the inspection scheme etc.  Their impact on EE policies and , last but not least, on the level of employment, is encouraging and foreign operators don’t seem to let this opportunity go by.

For more information please contact:

Anna Maria Sàlama – ENEA Casaccia Research Centre  – anna.salama@enea.it