Projects from Moldova, Armenia and Georgia are the winners of the second edition of the EU Sustainable Energy Award for the Eastern partnership, announced on the occasion of the EU Sustainable Energy Week.
The first prize was awarded to the Green Light Moldova – Modernisation and Saving Energy in Street Lighting project, a success story of two municipalities in Moldova and how they contribute at a local level to global emissions targets under the EU-supported Covenant of Mayors Initiative. The cities of Cantemir and Ocnita have committed to reducing their energy consumption and CO2 emissions by 20 per cent by 2020 and have developed a Sustainable Energy Action Plan (SEAP) to achieve that. A key focus has been to upgrade to modern, energy efficiency street lighting systems using European best practice.
The second place went to the EU4Civil Society Energy Efficiency in Armenian Communities project. Energy poverty is a growing phenomenon in Armenia, affecting about 40 per cent of the population, mostly living in rural towns and communities. This EU-supported initiative with partners from Armenia, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and Germany addressed this persisting problem by introducing an innovative and effective approach for enabling civil society and media to get actively involved in behavioural change initiatives to increase energy-efficiency in local households and communities. The model tested proved suitable for addressing social and economic issues in the communities concerned.
Finally, the third prize was awarded to the Biomass Energy and Energy Efficient Technologies in Georgia project, funded within the European Union Covenant of Mayors Demonstration Projects and co-financed by Telavi Municipality. The project envisages full retrofitting of two municipal kindergartens with modern energy efficiency technologies using renewable energy. In addition, a pilot to establish a supply chain of locally available, environmentally-friendly agricultural waste (vine pruning) was set up to produce energy to replace imported natural gas and unsustainably harvested fuel wood to operate modern autonomous heating systems.