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European recipe for energy efficiency: Best practices and pitfalls

The event titled “Energy efficiency: Practical lessons from the Pan-European experience for Ukraine” was held in the office of Deloitte Ukraine on 5 March 2019 to exchange valuable knowledge under support of partners. During the event, Polish experts shared their own experience and the leading practices of EU member states in energy efficiency.

In light of the EU Association Agreement and the urgent need for Ukraine’s Energy Security, energy conservation has become one of the top priority issues for our state. Energy savings will unleash wealth to be redirected towards growth areas in the economy, and unburden the population from the heavy burden of disproportionate energy costs. According to the annual global research Energodata, Ukraine continuous to remain one of the least energy-efficient countries in Europe.

Energy intensity of GDP at constant purchasing power parities (koe/$ 2015p) for Ukraine is 0.246, while for the EU this indicator stood at 0.078, for G7 – 0.101, for CIS countries – 0.202, for the world – 0.116. Such data clearly demonstrate that Ukraine has a great potential in the sphere of ​​energy efficiency. To unlock this potential, it is necessary to adopt international experience in policy-making aimed at improving energy efficiency.

“Poland is one of the main partners of Ukraine on the road to European integration and it actively contributes to the implementation of reforms in the energy sector. It has a significant practical experience in implementing energy-efficient solutions and policies, and is ready to share this experience with us,” said during his opening speech Greg Fishman, Business Development Director at Deloitte Ukraine.

Irena Pichola, Partner, Deloitte Consulting Poland and expert on climate and sustainable energy strategies, highlighted the global trend towards increased investment in energy sector and reduced global demand for primary energy resources, in particular for fossil fuels in light of implementation challenging global goals. To ensure successful transformation of the Ukrainian energy sector, Irena considers it important to remove financial and economical barriers for business and citizens and to support the agreed-upon rules that will hinder the influence of the state bureaucracy on the introduction of energy-efficient technologies.

Irena named public awareness as key factor on the road to energy efficient world as all parties: citizents, businesses, goverments needs to understand the challenges, see clear environmental and financial benefits and be willing to collaborate for joined success.

Leszek Kąsek, a Senior Consultant in Deloitte Poland, continued the topic of financing energy efficiency sector by stating that green bonds are a key trend in the global financial markets. “According to Bloomberg predictions, global issuance of green bonds will exceed US $400 billion by 2020. Prospective EU legislation on sustainable financing policy guarantees that more investors will turn to green investment,” said Leszek. Using this tool will allow to attract significant capital to implement clean energy projects. 

Andreas Helbl, General Director of iC Consulenten Ukraine, and Roman Babut, International Affairs Advisor to the Polish National Energy Conservation Agency (KAPE), discussed the need for conducting a quality audit in the energy sector to determine the most optimal technical and financial parameters for investment. Roman Babut also presented Poland’s experience in thermo-modernization of multi-storey residential buildings. He believes that successful implementation of such a project depends on the efficient coordination of actions at all levels – national, regional, and local.  

At the end of the event, Leszek Kąsek and Łukasz Kuszyński, both Senior Consultants at Deloitte Poland, presented practical cases for the implementation of technology solutions in the energy sector. Among the innovative solutions presented were a ‘smart metering’ as an alternative to traditional energy billing system, a ‘smart lighting’ based on LED technology, and energy management tools on smartphones.

Poland's experience has shown that a significant increase in energy efficiency can only be achieved through the implementation of the state policy that should cover all areas of the national economy and coordinate administrative, legislative, and financial measures to stimulate it.

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