Smart Energy Municipalities Project in Albania (SEMP)

The Smart Energy Municipalities Project (SEMP), funded by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), aims to support the four Albanian pilot municipalities of Berat, Shkodra, Korça and Permet on their path towards a sustainable energy and climate policy. The project supports municipalities in setting more ambitious targets for their energy consumption, CO2 emissions and municipal climate protection and in achieving them through targeted activities. In cooperation with the Albanian Agency for Energy Efficiency (AEE), SEMP also supports the municipalities in meeting the national energy and climate targets by 2040.

Based on a feasibility study carried out in 2019, SEMP is also supporting the four municipalities in planning, managing and monitoring their energy policy inclusively by introducing an energy management system based on the internationally applied European Energy Award (eea). Established eea tools such as the catalog of measures for assessing and planning municipal energy and climate policy and the assessment guidance as a standardized assessment tool have already been developed to support a well-founded energy management process. These are adapted to the specific context of Albanian cities and municipalities and to Albanian legislation. Albanian experts have also been trained as energy management consultants so that they can provide targeted support to municipalities.

The municipalities are also supported in reducing municipal energy consumption through energy efficiency measures. Street lighting, for example, often accounts for a high percentage of the local authority’s annual budget. In order to significantly reduce this energy consumption, SEMP is working with the municipalities and AEE to modernize the energy efficiency of street lighting in all four municipalities, and it’s also supporting them in the design and implementation of other relevant energy efficiency projects. In addition to energy consumption, this also drastically reduces the municipality’s CO2 emissions — entirely in line with both municipal and national energy and climate protection targets.

These activities are supplemented by awareness-raising measures and the tailored capacity building of local and national authorities and the Agency for Energy Efficiency (AEE). The latter is jointly responsible for the qualitative and quantitative reporting of the municipalities on the development of their municipal energy policy and achievements. Therefore, AEE is a central point of contact for the municipal authorities.

To successfully implement the SEMP project, ENCO AG is cooperating with experienced Albanian and Swiss project partners under the lead of GFA Hamburg. SEMP will be implemented between 2021 and 2024 and coordinated by the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs of the Swiss Confederation (SECO) in cooperation with the Ministry of Infrastructure and Energy of the Republic of Albania.