April 2023
The ENERTOWN project, launched in April 2023, is a project coordinated by the Association Center for the Study of Democracy (ACSD) and carried out in partnership with the University of Stavanger in Norway for the exchange of good practices and the development of the capacity to identify and implement a just transition in equivalent communities in Norway, ECERA – a non-governmental organization with expertise in energy and environmental policy, and Servelect – a company with expertise in energy management in several small urban localities.
The project “Energy Education for Sustainable Urban Areas – ENERTOWN” is funded by Innovation Norway through the Norwegian Grants 2014 – 2021 (https://www.innovasjonnorge.no, Working together for a green, competitive, and inclusive Europe), under the “Energy Programme in Romania,” with funding of 195,774 EURO and a grant value of 174,696 EURO.
The specific objectives of the project aim to strengthen the capacity of local actors to navigate the challenges of a just transition in the context of small urban areas in Romania, to identify and quantify specific challenges, and to produce intervention formulas that yield results in the community.
These include energy efficiency, local sustainability policies, participation of local communities in the identification of tailored and impactful policies, cooperation between relevant actors, inclusion of all key actors in the energy transition process, ensuring that no one is left behind in this process. Another objective is to produce tools in cooperation with these communities to transfer the knowledge gained here to other localities in Romania.
As a pilot project, ENERTOWN will take place in four out of five small urban towns in Cluj County, Romania: Huedin, Gherla, Turda, and Câmpia Turzii. The project activities are similar in all cities and involve selecting a target group of 20 participants from each of these cities. The actors come from municipalities and other local institutions related to the housing sector: workers in the energy, urban planning, architecture, civil construction, installations, consulting fields, civil society organizations that interact with citizens broadly, homeowner and tenant associations. These relevant actors will undergo a series of training sessions and will conduct a study visit and consultation on good practices in equivalent communities in Norway.
Another category of activities involves meetings with specialists from local communities with the objective of public awareness. The project also aims to identify and train key actors who can bring about change to continue the process of just (energy) transition at the local level beyond the project implementation period. Based on interactions with the local community, a series of tools will be developed to support the replication of ENERTOWN in other local contexts in Romania.
The pilot project will be carried out until December of this year and is implemented in the context of European objectives for a just transition. The results of this project can contribute to the implementation of these objectives in Romania, supporting broader programs such as the National Resilience and Recovery Plan, as well as long-term climate and energy resilience plans and other documents and strategies.
