After amalgamation, the Merefyanska AH learned to save on its own energy resources. Reducing electricity consumption and heating without neglecting comfort in schools and kindergartens became possible here through investments in energy conservation, introduction of an energy monitoring system and hromada’s own energy manager.

Today, the Merefyanska AH has five kindergartens, eight schools, six cultural houses and four office buildings on the balance sheet. After amalgamation in 2016 all these establishments began to be financed from the budget of one hromada.

 

 

That is why, following the resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers “On Approval of the Plan of Measures for Implementation of Energy Management Systems in Budget Institutions” approved in 2017, the deputies of the Merefa City Council approved the Regulations on the energy management and energy monitoring system in the budget sphere of the Merefa City Council.

This resolution provided for the introduction of energy managers in hromadas, i.e. specialists, who should control the rational consumption of energy in buildings of budgetary institutions of cities, villages and urban-type settlements.

In order to reduce the use of energy resources, the Merefyanska AH has chosen a strategic direction for energy efficiency. This journey began from the moment when in 2017 energy manager Olena Brovarnyk appeared in the hromada. In the same year, the AH started with testing the energy management and energy monitoring system.

“We started with a regular Google spreadsheet, inputted daily by all hromada supply and maintenance managers or directors of budget instituions. I collected this information in Excel to monitor and analyse the energy consumption of each building. Of course, manual input of all this data was not very convenient, so since 2018 we have installed special software.”

At that time, the AH system became fully functional, combining operational monitoring and analysis of energy efficiency indicators, as well as monitoring of energy efficiency projects.

“Today, absolutely every supply and maintenance manager has access to this online programme. They see how much resources a building consumes, previous consumption figures, up-to-date information on tariffs. The programme automatically calculates the consumption limits and the baseline,” explained the energy manager.

Having seen the results of energy monitoring, the Merefyanska AH realised what measures are the most cost-effective and continued to invest more strategically in energy saving. Thus, starting from 2017, they have invested about 3.5 million hryvnias from their oblast and local budgets in their own energy-saving projects.

 

 

For these funds, 85% of windows were replaced by energy-saving ones in educational and cultural institutions. Recuperators and heat pipelines were installed in local schools. This gave about 15% of heat savings annually.

Regarding electricity, about 30% of savings in hromada’s kindergartens and schools came from the replacement of hotplates in the food blocks.

In addition, 100% of the lighting systems in the budget sector have been replaced by energy-efficient ones. In general, these measures have saved electricity consumption by 10,000 kilowatts per month. Accordingly, for the hromada budget the savings amounted to about UAH 27,000 per month.

Street lighting is also energy efficient here. Old street lamps in the streets of the AH have already been replaced by LEDs, which help to make more efficient use of electricity. Besides, the outdoor lighting mode is controlled by electronic timers installed on the metering devices.

In addition, in order to save the hromada budget they switch to alternative heating and use solid fuel boilers to heat budget facilities.

 

 

According to Olena Brovarnyk, 5 solid fuel boilers have been built in the hromada so far. UAH 7.7 million were allocated for their construction from the local budget.

In total, 14 boiler-houses provide heat to the hromada, eight of them have been transferred to alternative heating.

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