South Denmark

Region of South Denmark consists of 22 municipalities (1,223,105 million inhabitants). The regions’ responsibilities are within the areas of health, psychiatry, social and regional development.

In recent years RSD has been actively engaged in sustainable energy activity. One initiative has been Strategic Energy Planning, supported by the Danish Government drawing up a planning process on how municipalities in coordination with the regional authority can take a sustainable path. In parellel with this several of the municipalities have signed Covenant of Mayor and currently is starting up a cooperation to enhance the energy and climate planning in relation to the C 40 standard for climate planning (DK2020).

The municipalities in the Region of Southern Denmark use each other a lot for the exchange of experience, where the municipalities are typically grouped in environmental networks: Green Network (Fredericia), Business Hub Fyn (Middelfart, Nordfyns, Nyborg, Assens, Faaborg-Midtfyn, Kerteminde, Svendborg), Greenet (Esbjerg, Billund, Fanø, Varde and Vejen) and Green Cities.

A recent initiative is that RSD has started an effort to replace oil and gas boilers in houses with heat pumps that would bring large environmental benefits. The region was close to getting a grant from the EU PDA programme to support this process via one-stop-shop platforms operating in three parts of the region, as shown on the map. The RoundBaltic intervention provides a good opportunity to follow-up on this initiative, incl. adding an energy saving dimension to the installation of heat pumps in the houses.

ELENA Project EPSD

14 municipalities and the Region of Southern Denmark initiated the EPSD project, and all the involved 15 partners invested in energy savings measures in the project period February 2014– February 2017. Within the building envelope, the main investments were focusing on: insulation in attic or roof, insulating of walls, replacing old window with new low energy class and replacing doors. The energy saving projects completed focussing on Installation were: Conversion from oil or natural gas to district heating, Heat-pump installation, low energy consuming pumps and fans, improved heat recovery on air system, Insulating warm distribution pipes, household appliances, solar PV and solar heating.

The amounts invested for the 3 categories of energy investments, are: · Building envelope: EUR 34 719 175 · Installations: EUR 35 255 301 · Street lighting: EUR 9,031,122