Modena counts180.000 inhabitants, capital of one of the provinces of Emilia-Romagna region, in Northern Italy. Modena enjoys a prime geographic position, in the centre of the Po river valley, at the crossroad of two key national highways (A1 running North-South the whole Country, A22 linking Italy with Central and Northern Europe). It is 40 km from Bologna, with its strategic railway hub and international airport. The province of Modena is one of the richest and most developed in Italy and Europe, and has one of the lowest unemployment rate as well as one of the highest pro capital levels of income. For that reasons, it also has a high percentage of third country nationals (5,3% in the provincial area). As all local authorities, the City of Modena is in charge of a wide range of services for citizens.
The City of Modena is implementing specific strategies and policies in the environ-mental and energy fields since more than twenty years.
Particularly, we focused on energy strategies, like the Energy City Plan 2002, and control and reduction of atmosphere climate gas, since 1996 Balance of the greenhouse ef-fect emission on Modena area, to work on energy consumption reduction and fuel environ-mental impact.
Implementing energy policy in Modena means: actions to improve energy saving in different ways and awareness-raising in all City Departments on energy issues and related problems.
Energy saving and renewable energies policies brought to Modena some important awards: European award “Energy Star 2002” and Eurosolar Italy 2003.
Some important projects aimed at energy saving and recovering as well as at envi-ronmental protection and energy conservation in heating gave some relevant results: first of all, to settle the electrical consumptions, concerning the progressive increasing of the de-manding and then a 35% reduction in 6 years of the heating consumptions. These could be done by using low absorption pipes in public lighting, by using certificated computer at low energy consumption for offices, by the optimisation of heating/cooling equipment.
Particularly relevant was the decision to adopt the EMAS II to the Dogali public swimming pool, where during the five years of applications there was an important reduction of electri-cal and water consumptions, a reduction of heating and cogeneration consumptions and an important reduction of CO2 global emission.
Other interesting projects of the Environmental Department/Energy Office were:
2000: voluntary agreement with some local schools for energy saving, which means sharing fifty/fifty the income deriving from the reductions in energy consumptions during school year;
2003: setting up some solar panels to use renewable energy sources to produce hot water;
2003: use of renewable energy sources on the Dogali public swimming pool to heat both the swimming water and the sanitary water;
2004: project on the use of renewable energy sources especially concerning schools and in-dustrial area.
The City of Modena has a long-term experience in EU-funded projects, both as leader and as partner. It also has a specific Department in charge of European affairs and interna-tional relations, providing assistance and support to all City Departments.
Actions implemented in the field of building performance:
DISPLAY: Municipal buildings cli-mate campaign (2002) as partner;
SAVE projects:
Bypad+: Audit and benchmarking schemes in the field of cycling policies (2002) as partner;
Agency for energy and sustainable development: Setting up of an Agency for energy and sustainable development (1998) as leader;
Speed Bike : Promotion of more rational use of energy by testing the performance of electro-muscular vehicles as alternative to traditional ones (1997) as leader
LIFE Projects as partner:
TANDEM Pilot action for promoting EMAS among local authorities (2001)
SMILE Sustainable mobility initiatives for local environmen (2000)
CLEAR City and local environment accounting and reporting (2000)
ISOLA Information system for the orientation of local actions (1997) as leader
Local projects and initiative:
Energy Certification on public buildings: Promotion of a methodology on building certification in particular concerning public buildings (2002);
Del. Reg. 387/02 on energy saving and energy retraining: Program of renewing of old boilers with high efficiency boilers in sports facilities and social houses; information system for the boilers campaign on CO2 consumption control (2004);
Energy saving: Project in partnership with the local energy Agency on energy saving (2004);
Photovoltaic energy use: Renewable energy sources - photovoltaic panel on industrial areas. High architectonical value photovoltaic project, according with the environmental affair, law number 111/siar/2000 (2004);
Photovoltaic energy use: Renewable energy sources - photovoltaic panel on four local schools (2004).
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