UNDP to help improve energy efficiency in central government buildings

ENERGY EFFICIENCY The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is providing technical assistance for a project to improve energy efficiency in central government buildings in Serbia, which will cover 28 out of a total of 56 such facilities.

The project, worth EUR 40 million, will enable the buildings to cut energy consumption by 30% and CO2 emissions by about 20%, according to Mining and Energy Minister Zorana Mihajlović.

The EUR 40 million project will help cut energy consumption by 30%

Following the signing of an agreement with the UNDP, Mihajlović said that Serbia’s new law on energy efficiency, which was adopted in April, is the first step towards achieving the country’s goal to reduce its energy consumption by at least 20-30% in the next few years.

The project is financed with a loan from the Council of Europe Development Bank

The project is financed with a loan from the Council of Europe Development Bank (CEB), which was approved in 2019. Works should be launched in 2022 and completed by 2025.

UNDP Resident Representative in Serbia Francine Pickup said that a study on energy savings in Serbia’s central government buildings has shown that savings could reach 260 million kWh, equivalent to the amount of electricity the city of Novi Sad needs to power public lighting over 10 years, while CO2 savings in a 10-year period could reach 58,000 tons.

Three key central government buildings received energy passports in 2015

The buildings of the Government of Serbia and the National Assembly, as well as the Palace of Serbia, are among the 28 facilities covered by the project. These three buildings were the first public buildings in Serbia to receive energy passports, following a study on energy efficiency conducted in cooperation with the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).

The energy passports were handed in 2015, with the government building and the Palace of Serbia rated as F and the parliament building as G according to energy efficiency classes from A to G.