UNDP GEF Success Stories on renewable and energy efficiency in the Western Balkans

Region

Sub-Regional Conference on Sustainable Energy inSouth Eastern Europe , 9-10 December 2013

John O’Brien, Regional Technical Advisor

Climate Change MitigationUNDP Bratislava Regional Centre

Slovakia

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1. Why what we do is important?

2. General Observations – What constitutes a successfulProject?

3. Specific Case Studies – Albania SWH & Croatia EE

- Adaptive Management- Strong Regulatory & Legal Framework- Scaling Up & Market Transformation

4. Concluding Remarks – Lessons Learned

Presentation Structure

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IPCC predicts a rise in average temperature up to 6 degrees celcius by 2100

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What makes a project transformational and highly successful?

Outcome Outputs Transformational

New Policies, Legislation, Regulations

Energy-Efficiency Laws, Building Codes, Renewable Energy Laws, Green Tarriffs

Highly Transformational (provided there is enforcement)

Action Plans & Strategies Sustainable Energy Action Plans, Municipal Energy Plans, Sustainable Transport Plans

Reasonably transformational (if investment funds available)

Demonstration Projects Revolving Funds, Investment Funds & Financial Support Mechanisms

Reasonably transformational (if funds replenished)

Demonstrations Projects Grant Funded Demo-Projects

Moderately transformational

Training Materials Capacity Building materials

Moderately transformational

Workshops & Seminars Capacity Building Events with Key Stakeholders

Moderately transformational

Information & Awareness Materials including websites …

Moderately trensformational

Successful projects do a lot more than just organizing a few workshops and seminars and distributing some materials …

I give projects high marks if they implement highly or reasonably transformational activities …

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Case Studies: Two Successful UNDP GEF Projects …

Albania Solar Water Heating Croatia EE in Residential & Project (2009 – 2014) Service Sectors (2003 -2013)

Rating: HS (highly satisfactory) Rating: HS (highly satisfactory)

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Case Study Number 1 – Albania Solar Water Heating

Albania – Solar Water Heating Project – UNDP GEF - $1 million

Target of 75,000 m2 of new installed collector area over the duration of the project as well as annual sales of over 20,000 m2 with expected continued growth to 520,000 m2 of installed capacity by the year 2020. This is over 300MW of avoided fossil fuel installed capacity. GHG reduction potential of over 800,000 tonnes of CO2e. Ends in mid-2015

(i) At mid-term nearly 40,000 m2 of new SWH capacity was installed, over 50% of the final impact;

(ii) Adoption of national product standards for SWH;(iii) A national action plan on renewable energy(iv) A new renewable energy law was passed in Albania, with the

assistance of the project, providing preferential tarriffs for RE6

Key Achievements

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Case Study Number 2 – Croatia Energy-Efficiency in Residential & Service Sectors – ran from 2003 - 2013

(i) National EE Master-plan with the

Programme of Implementation 2008-2016

(ii) Energy Charter: signed by all towns and

counties in the Republic of Croatia

(iii)National database of energy-efficiency

measures created, updated, and

maintained

(iv)All municipalities in Croatia implementing

energy management information systems

(v) 63% of households in Croatia switched to

the use of CFL bulbs

(vi)Ownership by local and national authorities

was a key success factor

Key Achievements

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Both Albania & Croatia projects undertook adaptive management

Albania project was supposed to benefit from UNEP assistance forcapacity building & training activities but it never really came so the project took it upon itself to develop training materials and deliver training sessions on SWH;

Croatia project entitled ‘Removing Barriers to Energy-Efficiency in the Residential & Service Sectors’ and ended up with a main focus on the public & municipal sectors. Initial focus on CFL distribution & loan guarantee mechanism was replaced with a focus on energy management information systems for public sector. Ran for 10 yrs.

The initial project design of the Croatia EE project was not suited to the circumstances that the project found itself in when it started …

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In particular, the Croatia EE project developed and implemented a web based energy management information system (EMIS) to allow for continuous data collection of energy usage in buildings …

Enables easy analysis and interpretation of energy and water usage data on local, regional or national level from one central place.

The EMIS can be accessed by any computer with an internet connection

The EMIS is in the process of being transferred from Croatia to Serbia …

Adaptive Management

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Albania SWH & Croatia EE projects helped introduce new legislation & plans …

Albania Renewable Energy Law (April 2013)- national binding objective for RE by the year 2020- incentives to facilitate grid connections for Albanian companies- guaranteed long term power purchase agreements for 15 years- streamlined licensing and permitting procedures- preferential feed-in tarriffs for renewable energy

Croatia EE Project (2006-2013) contributed to- Energy Efficiency master plan 2008-2016- Energy strategy of Croatia- First National Energy Efficiency action plan (2008-2010)- Second National Energy Efficiency Action Plan (up to 2013)- Law on Efficient end use of Energy (2012)

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Both projects involve scaling up & market transformation

Albania SWH project supported several muncipal sector demonstration projects and envisages scaling up through an investment grant mechanism before end of the project;

Croatia EE project started with a pilot project on ‘introduction ofSystematic Energy management system in city of Sisak in 2006 andthis was used to launch a national EMIS project in December 2007

The Croatia EE project led to significant leveraging of additional funds, leveraging over $40 million USD in additional public funding for energy-efficiency;

The Albania SWH project envisages at least $15 million in leveraging from the financial support mechanism (investment grant mechanism)

Demonstrations on their own are not enough unless they involve scaling up ….

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Key UNDP/GEF rules for Adaptive Management …

Project objective and outcomes are difficult to change…once that prodoc is signed you are “locked in” as regards expected achievements (unless you want to go back to GEF)

…but project outputs, activities and sub-activities can be adjusted; a prodoc is a living document and not “cast in stone.” Adaptive management should start from project inception. Not wait until the mid-term evaluation.

In fact, the Project Manager should constantly monitor them and adapt as

necessary, after consultations with key partners. A reason why Albania & Croatia projects have been successful is continual adaptive management

Adaptive management is a strategy emphasizing the need to change with the environment and to learn from doing, even from failures.

Unfortunately, UNDP’s M&E culture is one where “failures” are seen as a weakness and not as an opportunity for adaptation and improvement. I have never ever seen a Project Manager give a Project a ‘U’ rating.

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Why are Mid-Term Evaluations Important?Mid-Term evaluations are important because they provide a stock-taking of all that the project has achieved so far and can provide concrete recommendations to improve the project overthe second half of the project lifetime … Recommendations should be clear, specific, well defined and measurable …

Example of poor MTE (based on one recent example):-The project needs one person in charge and not two;-The project should not follow exactly what is in Prodoc/RCE;-The project needs to do adaptive management;

The same evaluator excused a project that did nothing for two years with the following comment- The project did not know they could do adaptive management

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We also learn lessons from projects that wereless successful?

Russia Greening Sochi – Poor project design & short time-frame makes it very hard for a project to be sucessful. $1 million dollars and two years and six components to transform the Sochi Olympics was not enough. (project will finish in early 2014) Ukraine ESCO Rivne – To succesfully achieve ESCO you need to focus on financing arrangements and this is very challenging in some countries. Establishing ESCO markets is not easy and ESCO Rivne was never an ESCO (started in 2000 and finished in 2012)Serbia Sustainable Transport - $1 million USD to transform the transportation system of the city of Belgrade is not enough for a transformational impact and project held MTE 3 ¼ years into a 4 year project & with almost no funds left (project will finish in early 2014 with very low global environmental benefits)

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Lessons learnt: Working Well and Areas for Improvement

Coordination with other Agencies Financial Support Mechanisms Finding Investors/Engaging Private Sector& getting them to invest …

UNDP general works well when it comes to working at a local level (municipalities, local governments) changes in policies, legislation, regulation awareness raising activities guidebooks, training materials demonstration activities

Where UNDP can sometimes impprove

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‘Instead of trying to change the world, lets try to change ourself …’ (Nelson Mandela 1918 – 2013)