Posted on : 2/26/2019

In December 2018 the City of Novi Sad and the United Nations Development Programme signed the Memorandum on Cooperation. 

The cooperation relates to promotion of the Energy Management System in Novi Sad, which is implemented through UNDP energy efficiency (EE) project in Serbia in cooperation with the Ministry of Mining and Energy of the Republic of Serbia.

The objective of EE Project is to introduce and support the implementation of municipal Energy Management System (EMS), including Energy Management Information System (EMIS), throughout Serbia and to increase the EE investments in public buildings and municipal services as well as to facilitate their more energy efficient operation in general.

The Memorandum on cooperation was signed by Mrs Steliana Nedera, Resident Representative at UNDP Serbia and Mr Miloš Vučević, Mayor of the City of Novi Sad.

The city of Novi Sad is the biggest municipality in Serbia with population of some 353.000. Therefore, it has the highest energy consumption among municipalities, both in private and public sector. Also, there are some 330 public buildings in competence of the City for which the cost for energy is borne by the City. Most of these buildings are energy inefficient which means that Novi Sad has a very high potential for energy and cost savings.

In 2015, the City of Novi Sad established a specialized Energy Agency to perform development, technical and regulatory tasks in the field of energy in the City of Novi Sad. The Agency performs tasks in the field of energy, which fall within jurisdiction of the City, as well as the tasks related to the energy sector entrusted to the City by the Republic of Serbia. Additionally, the Agency deals with energy management and energy planning in accordance with the Energy Law and the Law on Efficient Use of Energy. Therefore, the Energy Agency will be the lead counterpart in the cooperation defined by the memorandum. 

The subject of the Memorandum is the cooperation between the City of Novi Sad and Energy Agency of the City of Novi Sad, and energy managers from local public utility companies and UNDP EE project team on the following topics:

1. Development of advanced EMIS functionalities related to automatic data transfer.

2. Testing of new EMIS modules.

3. Training of EMIS end-users in public buildings, in competence of Novi Sad, to use and enter data into the EMIS.

4. Elaborating the inventory of boilers in public buildings, in competence of Novi Sad.

5. Participation of energy managers and relevant experts from Novi Sad in UNDP activities related to informing and raising awareness of energy efficiency and the use of renewable energy sources.

6. Participation of energy managers and relevant experts from Novi Sad in the activities related to knowledge innovation and exchange of experiences with similar projects implemented by the UNDP around the world.

The first activity envisaged by the memorandum was implemented in the period from 11th  to 14th  February 2019 in the premises of PUC „Informatika“ and encompassed the training for all end-users of the Energy Management Information System (EMIS) in public buildings in competence of the City of Novi Sad. The training was delivered by the UNDP experts in close cooperation with Energy Agency of Novi Sad.

During the exercise, one hundred thirty users from primary and secondary schools, kindergartens, city administrations, public and utility companies, local communities, cultural institutions in the territory of the City of Novi Sad received training in collecting and entering data into the Energy Management Information System (EMIS). Data entered in the system will be used to monitor energy consumption and costs, as well as to help local self-government to produce an annual energy consumption report and to monitor the realization of the energy savings target set on an annual basis by the Government of the Republic of Serbia.

Trainees are persons who are, on behalf of budget users of the City of Novi Sad, in charge of collecting and entering data on consumption and costs of energy, energy sources and water in the facilities which they have been assigned for. 

So far, some 700 trainees all over Serbia has been trained.