Successful Steps in SECAP Implementation of Alba Iulia Municipality

In line with ALEA’s main objective to support local authorities in the region, the association has been supporting the Alba Iulia Municipality since its establishment. In the last period, the Municipality has had remarkable achievement in sustainable development. The SECAP of the municipality, which is currently under implementation, led to several successful initiatives, proving that Alba Iulia is engaged in attaining the Covenant of Mayors objectives.

A large number of projects has been implemented or are under implementation:

• Modernisation of a large part of the public lighting system;
• Thermal rehabilitation of several important blocks of flats that presented really low energy efficiency;
• Energy efficiency works on several public buildings, especially educational ones;
• Acquisition of electric buses for the public transportation fleet (an important ongoing project).

Based on these initiatives and other notable results, the city was awarded «Sustainable Community – European Energy Award» for Romania in 2021. This is an official acknowledgement the Alba Iulia has had outstanding results in its continuous efforts made for the development of a smart city and sustainable community.

For the future, the plans of the city are also ambitious having in perspective the implementation of several larger scale projects. Within the initiatives that have been started this year at municipality level are:

• The implementation of a RES project – solar energy to supply the needs of the Municipal Olympic Pool;
• The installation of PV panels on the roofs of 6 public educational buildings to reduce the municipality carbon emissions;
• The installation of heat pumps to supply an important elderly home with green thermal energy;
• The implementation of a research project having as scope to identify the energy poverty levels in the social housing area and to find innovative solutions to tackle it;
• The transformation of the building of most important college in the city (HCC National College) into an nZEB one;
• The upgrade of the adaptation plan for climate change of the municipality.

The commitment of the city in attaining its targets for sustainable development is also visible in the city`s public investment policy, where the share of financing for “green” projects implementation will reach almost 50% from entire investment sum in the next period. This makes us feel confident that the city is on its correct path to reach carbon neutrality set for the year 2050.

This best practice is issued from our publication Sustainable Regions in Action 2022. Read it now to discover many more best practices from FEDARENE members as well as an overview of our activities.