Last week the Italian Ministry for the Environment, Land and Sea (IMELS) and Studiare Sviluppo in collaboration with the Egyptian New and Renewable Energy Authority (NREA) and the Lebanese Center for Energy Conservation (LCEC) held first in Cairo then in Beirut the MED-DESIRE training sessions on Solar Ordinances and about Financial instruments for distributed solar energy technologies.
The courses started in Egypt with “Innovative regulatory instruments for local support to distributed solar technology: Solar Ordinances” collecting about 40 technicians of NUCA, the New Urban Community Authority. During the two training days, on 16 and 17 of November, NREA Representatives talked about MED-DESIRE project and the potential role of NUCA in the solar ordinance process. Marco Calderoni, Politecnico di Milano, introduced to solar thermal technology and explained the specific rules of Egyptian solar thermal ordinance, whereas Franco D’Amore, Puglia Region/Arti discussed about the prospective of a solar ordinance in Egypt. Important results were achieved such as the deep understanding of NUCA needs: support defining standard plant schemes for solar water heaters in typical NUCA buildings and in the preparation of call for tenders.
Furthermore, from 17 to 19 of November, the training sessions “Financial instruments for distributed solar energy technologies” and “Innovative regulatory instruments for local support to distributed solar technology: Solar Ordinances” took place in Lebanon. More than 30 participants among economical operators, public administration officers, banks and financial institutes, joined in. During the sessions on financial instruments LCEC spoke about MED-DESIRE project and the best practices on RE and EE in Lebanon. MED-DESIRE experts talked about the issue of climate finance, support mechanisms benchmarking and global figures of renewable energy finance. Subsequently, a new financial mechanism enabling local authorities to access public concessional financing have been presented and its implementation modalities have been discussed with main stakeholders, in particular Banque du Liban. Working groups and case studies were also part of the sessions. The course on Solar Ordinances started shortly after with Marco Calderoni, Politecnico di Milano, introducing to solar thermal technology and speaking about the specific rules of solar thermal ordinance in the Union of Municipalities of Tyre. The main outcomes related to solar ordinance concern the legal framework in Lebanon: municipalities do not have the power to enforce mandatory obligations, thus a volunteer scheme will be adopted in Tyre. Nevertheless, the High Council for Urban Planning could introduce a mandatory solar ordinance.