While Cyprus Energy Agency (CEA) was waiting for the official response from the Joint Secretariat (JS) for the approval of their Action Plan this May, they began working on the implementation of Action 3 "Issuance of Guidebook for the Energy Upgrade of Heritage Buildings” and Action 4 "Interdisciplinary Seminars [courses] for Professional Training”, as included in their local Action Plan.
For Action 3, CEA is mainly working internally in order to create the main outline of the guidebook with the introductory/essential information and then we will arrange meetings with the relevant departments (members of our Community of Practice (CoP)), in order to further discuss those and reach to the final version of the Guidebook [Autumn 2020]. It is noted that the bilateral meetings with the key-stakeholders are postponed due to the situation.
On the other hand, for Action 4, CEA has prepared the documents for submitting the seminar to the Human Resource Development Authority of Cyprus in order to establish co-funding and to attract more professionals of the field. CEA is also in the process to appoint the instructor for the lectures. The seminars are expected to be implemented from late 2020 until 2021.
It is noted that Action 1 "Recommendations for the EU level recast Energy Performance of Buildings Directive” has already completed during the 1st Phase of the project, but there are some delays in regards the release of the new legislation which will include CEA’s suggestions based on VIOLET’s outputs. More specifically, the official release of the legislation was expected in March, but due to the situation, the new legislation is yet to be announced.
Action 2 "Issuance of Energy Performance Certificates for Heritage Buildings”, was also completed during the 1st Phase of the project, but some additional activities are planned for the 2nd Phase as well. Those include the implementation of 'reversed scenarios’ for some of the buildings, meaning the study of scenarios which will compare a typical restoration against restorations which adapted energy savings measures, in order to quantify the impact of the applied actions.
In addition to the above, CEA has participated in the consultations for the National 'Long-term renovation strategy’ for the energy upgrade and the decarbonisation of the existing building stock by 2050 (required by the EU for all Member States). VIOLET is included in the National Strategy, under the section 'Research and innovation in the field of energy efficiency of buildings' for aspiring future actions. The strategy will be released within 2020.
Finally, based on the current programming, the extra activities (informational events to key-stakeholders), which have been approved by the JS, will be implemented towards the end of the year and will run till the next year.
CEA’s Action Plan has been approved by JS in early May.
Library Hotel, Kalavasos, Larnaka, Cyprus
[Architect responsible for restoration: Ms Antonia Theodosiou – © Antonia Theodosiou]
