Schools, public building and street lightning 'go green' in Koprivnica

This year city of Koprivnica made a huge leap in terms of environmental awareness and energy efficiency. Since the City is distinctively intent at increasing energy efficiency and environmental awareness it regularly conducts activities oriented in increased use of renewable energy sources, reducing CO2 emissions and protecting the environment.

Covenant of Mayors

To this end, the City of Koprivnica signed the Covenant of Mayors in 2010, which is an initiative of the European Commission aimed at the active involvement and continuous action of local and regional governments in increasing energy efficiency and use of renewable energy in their area which would be their contribution to the fight against global warming.

By joining the initiative and by signing the Covenant of Mayors, the signatories are obligated to apply a number of energy efficiency measures which will ultimately help reduce CO2 emissions in their city for more than 20% by the year 2020.

Using green criterias as part of PRIMES project

City of Koprivnica, among the first in Croatia, in 2011 started with the application of the Sustainable Energy Action Plan(SEAP), although in the SEAP is not explicitly stated, a significant measure involves the so-called green procurement, ie. implementation of public procurement applying the green criteria - operations to procure goods, services and works that enable energy saving and CO2 reduction.

Thanks to the project "Primes" (full name: Procurement in municipalities focusing on energy efficient solutions) which is being carried out in seven European countries within the Intelligent Energy Europe programme (IEE Programme), and technical support of the Regional Energy Agency North and UNDP Croatia the city of Koprivnica as a beneficiary of this project decided to carry out a couple of public procurement procedures according to the green public procurement (green criteria).

Procurment of electricity made from renewable energy sources

Therefore, in 2014 the city conducted for the first time in it's history a public procurement procedure of procuring electricity made from renewable energy sources. Although many local and regional self-government in Croatia are implementing the energy efficiency policies, the use of so-called green electricity in public institutions are only in the initial phase.

City of Koprivnica is however one of the first local government units in Croatia, which has recognized the benefits of electricity from renewable sources. The so-called. green electricity, energy from renewable energy sources in Croatia so far in its operations used mainly businesses and companies.

Unified purchase

The City this year with the purchase of green energy decided to unify the purchase of electricity with some of the city's institutions who also became consumers of electricity from renewable sources, these include primary school brothers Radic, Elementary School Duro Ester, Art school Fortunat Pintarić and Public Open University therefore thanks to unified procurement a better price was reached.  In addition to the aforementioned institutions, residents of the city of Koprivnica will also use green electricity on the streets, which derives from the fact that public lighting consumes power from renewable sources.

The acquisition of 3,550 MWh of electricity from renewable sources ensured reduction of CO2 emissions of 1,300 tons per year compared to the consumption of electricity from conventional ie. Non-renewable resources.

Croatia as the newest member of the EU needs to contribute to the reduction of CO2 emissions and in addition to increasing energy efficiency in local units and encouraging the use of renewable energy sources, other municipalities are encouraged  in "greening" their public procurements. City of Koprivnica is proud to continue to be a good example of how to live "greener".

Schools, public building and street lightning 'goes greener' in Koprivnica: