Welcoming speeches were delivered by the First Deputy Chairman of Regional Council Valentyn Melnychuk, Deputy Governor Serhiy Serhienko, Member of the Regional Council, Chairman of the Standing Committee on issues of economic development, investment activity and implementation of state regulatory policy Dmytro Ivanov.
While opening the event, Valentyn Melnychuk congratulated the honored guests from Slovakia on hospitable Chernihiv earth and thanked the Ukrainian and Slovak experts on energy efficiency, who agreed to talk and present their experience to heads and specialists of Ukrainian cities and municipal utilities.
Serhiy Serhienko congratulated Slovak experts and highlighted the relevance of the conference in view of the challenges to the energy security of the state and Chernihiv region. Noting the positive experience of individual cities, in particular, in Mena town, where energy-efficient lighting was installed, Mr. Serhienko called for greater engagement and responsibility of both government and energy consumers and noted that only joint efforts could improve regional infrastructure and achieve significant results in energy saving.
Economic Advisor to the Ambassador of the Slovak Republic to Ukraine Roman Žatko and Director of the Research Center of the Slovak Foreign Policy Association Alexander Duleba informed about the support of the Slovak Republic in forming appropriate Ukraine's state policy approaches in the field of energy efficiency and energy saving. In particular, Mr Žatko said about five main components to improve energy efficiency: updating the regulatory framework, the introduction of energy efficiency measures in the public sector and promote energy conservation to private consumers, energy security, competitiveness and focus on the needs of the consumer.
In turn, Alexander Duleba, director of the Research Center of the Slovak Foreign Policy Association, said that Slovakia had a long period of adopting energy efficiency experience from the Western Europe and currently offers to Ukraine tested and adapted to the post-Soviet infrastructure examples, thus avoiding many mistakes that occurred in Slovakia. He called for a balanced approach to each project and try to get as much information as possible about the possible similar experience from Slovak colleagues.
Mr. Gonchar, President of the Centre for Global Studies "Strategy XXI" in his introductory speech explained reasons of Slovakia and Visegrad experience relevance for Ukraine and opportunities for acquaintance with it through conferences and study tours, which accounted for a significant part of the activities under the current project. Also he drew attention to the statistics about activity of regions of Ukraine (Portal «Open Aid for Ukraine»), which cooperate with European partners and international donors in solving local problems. Statistics show the high activity of cooperation with Europeans in the western regions and is much lower for the eastern regions, in particular Chernihiv and Sumy, which means that there is an unused reserve for cooperation.
Dmytro Ivanov, Member of the Regional Council, Chairman of the Standing Committee on issues of economic development, investment activity and implementation of state regulatory policy in his speech stressed the urgency of energy efficiency for regional development programs and emphasized the initiatives of individual cities, which initiated relations with international donors and implemented a number of projects , which can become illustrative examples for the rest of the region.
After the welcoming greetings, a session was started where participants of the conference were able to familiarize themselves with the work of the State Agency for Energy Efficiency and Energy Conservation in Ukraine through a presentation and discussion with Roman Maretsky, Deputy Head of the State Expectize Department. In his speech, Mr. Maretsky described the work of the SAEE, achievements and features of the state program of support for energy-efficient projects "Warm Credits", legal and regulatory drafting work and challenges, which both the state and citizens are facing.
Andrii Lesio, the energy auditor, Head of platform on energy efficiency OKNA.ua in his speech said about Ukrainian growing attention to energy efficiency and energy saving, and familiarized the audience with a number of applied research instruments, which can significantly help in selecting energy-efficient materials, including a program to calculate efficiency windows that allow any user to define how effective are windows existing or planned to be installed.
Karel Hirman, Expert of the Strategic Group of Advisers for Reforms Support in Ukraine at the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, spoke about the contribution of Slovak experts to the development of a state policy on energy efficiency and energy conservation, challenges and prospects, peculiarities of reforms in Slovakia and the nearest plans in the context of the commencement of the new legislation.
During the third session the experience of the Slovak Agency for Innovation and Energy was presented to the audience. Director of International Cooperation Department Jan Magyar in his speech emphasized the key prerequisite of success – innovations. The speaker noted that it is extremely important to improve the education system to train skilled workers. Mr Magyar said that energy efficiency improvement should feel every citizen and consumer. For this support program should be introduced, for example, in Slovakia in 2008 - 2013 rr. a modernization program for street lighting renovation was introduced, in 2010 - to support the modernization of systems for monitoring energy use in public buildings. Slovakia is actively implementing the latest technologies and approaches for the construction of energy-efficient housing and has one of the largest databases of renovated buildings.
Matúš Škvarka, Energy Manager of Trnava city presented the experience of successful reforms at the municipal level, which made it possible for the whole city to become energy self-sufficient. The secret of success of Trnava he finds a way to control who has to answer the questions of current, medium and long-term development and sustainability of the city. Having achieved significant progress in ensuring the current needs of the city, according to Mr Škvarka, Trnava develops general strategy for improving environmental conditions of the urban space, in particular by supporting electric transport.
The afternoon sessions were devoted to practical projects, implemented by Slovak companies, using foreign technologies and their own innovative solutions. Radoslav Kňazúr, Head of Sales Department at the DATATHERM s.r.o., introduced to the audience a number of projects in the use of local energy sources, efficient cogeneration and CHPC (combined heat, power, cooling).
Peter Šiška, Commercial Director of the Engul s.r.o. shared experience of successful application of modern technologies and approaches for district heating, use of biogas and cogeneration units for the processing of domestic and industrial waste.
Alexander Moroz, representative of "Intech" s.r.o. spoke about the successful experience in the use of organic waste to produce heat and electricity and is convinced in the possibility to substitute a large part of fossil fuels by them, provided effective organization of the collection and recycling of available local resources. According to him, Slovak companies are ready to bring not only their technologies to Ukraine, but also help to receive financing for projects on acceptable terms.
At the end of the session on the experience of Slovak business, Vladimir Kravec, a representative of Steinzeug Keramo made a presentation to participants about ceramic tubes as the most ecological and durable material to upgrade sewage and water supply systems in urban settlements.
An important issue that worried the audience was how to ensure financing of energy efficiency projects, given expensive borrowed funds from domestic financial and banking sector. Executive Director of the Association of Energy Efficient Cities of Ukraine - Andriy Kyrchiv, informed the conference participants about the programs of support that are available to Ukrainian cities, in particular, on the EU program of the Covenant of Mayors, available financial mechanisms for municipalities and private consumers.
Oksana Kysil, Chief Expert of the "Covenant of Mayors East" described the features of the Sustainable Energy Action Plans (SEAPs), including newly introduced environmental dimension, prospects and opportunities, which are open to signatories through support provided by the EU.
The representative of the German Agency for International Cooperation GIZ - Maksym Tykhomyrov presented to the audience the work in the field of maintenance and modernization of hospital fund in Ukraine, in particular, cooperation project with Chernihiv city. According to him, considerable attention will be paid to measures that do not require major financial contributions, but have a significant effect in reducing and optimizing energy consumption. The main measures, which were mentioned, include the introduction of energy efficient technical and financial services, the development of the institutional capacity of the administrative and technical staff of hospitals, creating a platform for sharing lessons learned by the example of the modernization of two pilot projects.
The conference concluded with the speeches of the leaders of the Slovak and Ukrainian organizers of the conference. In particular, Mr. Duleba thanked the participants for active participation and expressed his hope for continued cooperation with local self-government bodies. Despite the completion of the current project, Mr. Duleba expressed his hope for new meetings and deepening of the dialogue between Ukrainian and Slovak cities in the exchange of experience on energy efficiency.
M.Gonchar thanked the Chernihiv Regional Council for assistance in organizing the conference, providing premises and organizational support. Focusing on accessibility and practical significance of Slovak experience, Mr. Gonchar called for active dialogue and work at the local level without regard to national policy, emphasizing that everyone has to clean up their houses above all by themselves. He also called to use available opportunities to share experience and initiative to solve problems and challenges at the local level, to prepare project proposals, and to search for potential partners in projects.
At the end of the event, the participants had the opportunity to chat in a relaxed atmosphere with a cup of coffee, which facilitated the exchange of contacts between interested local government officials and utilities and Slovak experts and businessmen.
Photo galerie from the conference:
