D4.1 – MAIN USER REQUIREMENTS AND NEEDS FOR TRAINING MATERIAL

The ePLANET project is a Coordination and Support Action cofounded by the European Commission through Horizon 2020 program. This project aims to deploy new clustering governance for energy transition based on a digital framework to share harmonized information, facilitating the adoption of coordinated energy transition actions by the European public sector.

The development of ePLANET is justified to deploy Energy Transition (ET) in public sector, for which the following challenges are targeted:

• Improving coordination between local authorities and regional governments,
• Enhancing decision-making process in deployment of ET projects,
• Providing coherence and consistency to the energy transition measures (ETM) to be implemented,
• Encouraging the digitalization of measures and plans,
• Enabling an interoperable ecosystem of data and tools,
• Building capacity of local authorities

All these targeted objectives will give the needed support for the energy transition decision-making process and its practical implementation.

The present report outlines the results of a needs-assessment process conducted from January to May 2022 by ePLANET consortium to identify the main capacity-building needs, knowledge gaps and barriers of the municipalities in the ePLANET pilots in terms of energy planning and measures. Survey and interview results contained in this report provide a picture of barriers, topics of interest and challenges of municipalities in the ePLANET pilot regions. These results will help e-PLANET develop capacity-building activities for different type of actors in the region that are tailored to their needs and empower them to develop and implement their energy transition plans and measures, despite the increasing administrative and financial constraints that they face. Accordingly, it will feed directly into Task 4.2 – Strategies to overcome ET barriers.

The main findings were:

• Limited financial resources is the greatest barrier perceived by ePLANET municipalities to implement projects and design climate and energy plans. It was cited as a central issue by more than 88% of municipalities in the three pilots. A lack of technical expertise was the next most prevalent one.
• With regards to sectors and areas, buildings and solar were highlighted quite unanimously as relevant sectors for municipalities in three pilot regions.
• The strong need for specific support on finance is a matter of consensus for a large majority of municipalities in Girona and Crete. 80.5% of municipalities in these two pilot regions referred to the European Structural Investment Funds as an area where they have strong needs, and 75% to the innovative financing like EPC and crowdfunding. By contrast, only 27% of respondents from ZlÍn Region indicated having strong capacity building needs in finance.
• More than 75% of municipalities in the three pilot regions reported having difficulties in specific daily tasks related to energy transition in the past months. Although difficulties are encountered in a variety of situations, there are specific tasks identified by at least 25% of municipalities in at least two pilot regions. These include collecting and interpreting local energy data, deciding which measures to save energy at local level and defining monitoring indicators.
• Around 60% of surveyed municipalities in the three pilot regions attended capacity-building activities in the past 5 years. Most of them in the form of webinars. In the majority of cases, it was helpful for understanding complex issues but less for implementing actions or projects.
• The preferred methods for capacity building are webinars, thematic workshops, coaching and study visits.