Energy Efficiency Project Lights Up Town
Ukraine’s communal buildings are notoriously energy inefficient. As energy prices climb, outdated technology becomes an increasingly larger liability for municipal budgets.
Like many towns in Ukraine, Trostyanets has apartment buildings with poor lighting that not only wastes energy but also poses a serious safety threat to residents. With USAID support, the Eurasia Foundation’s (EF) Municipal Partnership for Better Energy Use program recently helped resolve the hazards by upgrading public lighting systems in 75 percent of the town’s apartments in 61 municipal residential buildings through a public-private partnership it fostered between the Trostyanets City Council and the Union of Trostyanets Entrepreneurs.
“Before the project it was always dark in our building,” said Anatoliy Zayats, a pensioner. “But now you enter the building and lights automatically switch on. You go to another floor—and they switch on there. And, even more amazingly, after you enter the apartment and close the door, the lights automatically switch off. People visiting Trostyanets can’t believe it.”
The Municipal Partnerships for Better Energy Use program, jointly funded by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Project Coordinator in Ukraine and USAID, engages local governments and communities to stimulate local innovation and improve energy efficiency in public spaces. Local government support is a critical component of the program; all of the programs have secured co-funding from municipal budgets or other community sources.
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The program in Trostyanets included an electricity system and energy use audit of city apartment buildings and surveys on the state of community services. Implementers studied ways to decrease energy usage and installed new equipment, including electricity meters, motion-detecting streetlights and energy efficient light bulbs.
Since 2006, EF has invested over $250,000 in 12 energy efficiency programs throughout Ukraine with its Municipal Partnerships for Better Energy Use program, promoting public private partnerships to implement grassroots energy efficiency initiatives in about 20 cities and towns across the country. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands has also provided funding for some of these programs.
“Local governments can work closely with citizens to identify the community’s most pressing needs, and government participation is essential for such projects to be sustainable,” said Trostyanets Mayor Yuriy Bova.
The new energy efficient lighting systems save residents between UAH 16,000 and 25,000 ($3,200-$5,000) collectively per year on their communal services fees. Their communal areas are also now better lit and safer. Trostyanets city officials will use the savings to repair and improve other public buildings and living areas. To maintain the partnership, the partners have established a regional development agency that will continue to advise the local government and address community issues.
The East Europe Foundation (EEF)—an EF offspring in Ukraine—plans to continue this program in 2008-2009 with funding from OSCE, USAID, Telenor, the Norwegian Embassy in Kyiv and other donors.
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