TALLINN, 15 June 2009 - It is the view of the National Audit office that the state lacks a clear, agreed objective for saving energy and an effective energy saving plan.
Although the subject is much discussed at the state level, actual results have been few.
The audit carried out by the National Audit Office showed that although the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications plans to invest a total of 1.63 billion kroons in energy-saving measures between 2007 and 2013, it is not known where or how much energy will be saved as a result.
Nor have state agencies adopted the principles of energy saving. Attention has only been focused on saving energy in a small number of public procurements. Although such procurements see billions of kroons spent on acquiring buildings, vehicles and office equipment, energy saving has remained in the background in determining the best offers. Moreover, the administration of state buildings has not seen analysis carried out of the energy costs of the buildings and ways of reducing them. The state does not collect the data required to do this.
The audit carried out by the National Audit Office drew attention to the fact that the specific research programme launched in 2007 with regard to energy saving primarily only plans studies, the drafting of legal acts, training courses and improved distribution of information. Actual development and implementation of the required savings measures will mostly only occur in 2011 or even later. There are only two direct financial measures for reducing final consumption of energy in the specific research programme – support for the renovation of apartment buildings valued at 656 million kroons and support for the energy-saving investments of local governments to the value of 33 million kroons.
It is the view of the National Audit Office that one of the greatest obstacles to planning energy saving is the lack of the required basic data. In order to identify unreasonable costs, the energy volumes of different fields should be compared both within Estonia and with other countries, following which the most effective savings measures can be selected. Although attention was drawn to this problem in 2002, no significant steps have been taken to improve the collection and processing of such data.
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The National Audit Office audited Estonia’s action plan for the more economical consumption of energy and the implementation of the principles of energy saving in public procurements and in the administration of state buildings.
The European Union has made it mandatory for its member states to draft an energy efficiency action plan which will achieve the desired objective – to make a 9% saving on energy in final consumption based on the average amount of energy consumed between 2001 and 2005. This saving must be achieved between 2008 and 2016 (i.e. 1% per annum). Taking into account Estonia’s consumption data, Estonia will need to have saved 2678 GWh of energy by the end of 2016.
Toomas Mattson
Communication Manager of National Audit Office
Telephone: 6400 777
Mob: 51 34900
E-mail: [email protected]
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Posted:
6/15/2009 10:47 AM
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Last Update:
8/28/2015 9:22 PM
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Last Review:
8/28/2015 9:22 PM