Today, cities around the world are facing increasing pressure to take an active role in combating climate change while making their energy management more efficient. In the Czech Republic, two key strategies serve this purpose: the Local Energy Concepts and the Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plan (SECAP). These documents not only respond to energy and climate goals at EU and Czech level, but also provide concrete plans for the transition to more sustainable and energy efficient cities.
The energy sector and emission aspects of MEK and SECAP
The Local Energy Concepts are focused directly on the energy of the municipality or city. Their objective is energy savings and the share of renewable energy sources (RES) in the consumption/production in the city. They serve as a plan and timetable for the municipality’s energy management in the future. The Climate and Energy Action Plans (SECAP) monitor GHG emissions for the entire municipality, i.e. in addition to the energy sector, also transport and all other sources of CO2 emissions. In the energy sector, SECAP can be thought of as a helicopter view, while local energy conceps serve as a ladder view. Local energy concepts focus on details and look more at designs on municipal assets. Importantly, local energy concepts focus exclusively on the energy sector and on the preparation of measures, proposing and calculating to the city what to do and where to do it, under what conditions, at what scale, and to some extent helping with the pre-project preparation of energy projects. SECAP, on the other hand, primarily looks at emissions in the energy sector, and in this way it overlaps with the local energy concepts.
Strategic areas and complexity
Unlike the Local Energy Concept, which focuses exclusively on energy, the Climate and Energy Action Plan represents a modern development strategy for the city with an emphasis on the environment and sustainability. The SECAP is structured into two main pillars: emissions mitigation (covering energy and transport) and municipal adaptation to climate change. The first pillar focuses on “mitigation” (reducing emissions), and includes energy and transport. The second pillar includes the overall adaptation of the municipality to climate change (all measures in the landscape and in the urban area in relation to the risks of heat waves, overheating, droughts and other extremes). SECAP is thus very comprehensive while ensuring that measures are evaluable, measurable, and applicable in practice.
Sectoral scope
Both local energy sectors and SECAPs address all sectors. From households, to businesses (industry, agriculture, services), to the public sector. In addition, the Climate and Energy Action Plan addresses adaptation to climate change, it has a fundamentally greater intention in this respect, but it does not go so much into the elaboration of proposals for action, but focuses on the analysis, description of risks and options for action that the city and actors from its territory have already come up with.
Cooperation with the community
The Local Energy Concept is primarily a tool and a timetable in the energy sector of the city. The action plan is instead built on cooperation with all players in the territory, from large companies, to farmers, to the non-profit sector, to apartment buildings or specific households. While collaboration with local stakeholders is necessary in the preparation of the SECAP, this is not the case in the energy concept, although it is recommended.
Legal obligations and benefits
In the Czech Republic, the development of a Local Energy Concept or a Climate and Energy Action Plan is not currently a legal obligation, but both plans offer cities advantages in responding to the EU and Czech energy and climate goals. Preparing for future legislative changes and the possibility of obtaining funding, such as Norway Grants or for establishing energy communities, is much easier for cities with well-prepared plans. The Climate and Energy Action Plan is an interesting strategy in terms of cooperation with other parties, especially companies, but also HOAs/housing associations, developers, farmers, etc., in short, anyone who is concerned with sustainability for whatever reasons.
Membership of a city or municipality in the Covenant of Mayors is a condition for applying for a grant to develop a Climate and Energy Action Plan.
