Ecoclub gathered energy managers of central Ukraine in Vinnitsa for three days for training. At the training on May 29-31, thirty representatives and representatives of hospitals from Khmelnytsky, Kyiv, Vinnytsia, Rivne, Zhytomyr, Chernivtsi regions listened to the presentations of specialists in buildings, management and finance.
In Ukrainian hospitals there is no such position as an energy manager, and their functions are assigned to other specialists: power engineers, engineers, utopians. One of their problems is the lack of time to fully discharge all duties and the constant “extinguishing of fires”. At the training we talked about what tasks are of the highest priority and what can be postponed until later.
Traditionally, lack of funding is considered the first criterion for choosing energy efficiency measures for implementation. But in Vinnytsia, for the first time in 6 similar trainings conducted by Ecoclub, participants put this problem on the 4th place. After discussing the previous trainings, participants also come to the understanding that funding cannot be a major criterion, but is merely a consequence of others: energy savings, savings, greenhouse gas reductions.
Energy managers were able to practice their knowledge during the calculation exercise. The task was to draw up a plan of energy efficiency measures for a conditional hospital of two buildings for 10 years. A special condition of the task is the ability to use the savings for future energy efficiency measures. Currently, only a small number of health care facilities can independently plan their own energy costs, and the hospital budget is independent of the cost savings. For the vast majority, savings will reduce the utility budget next year. Therefore, there is no financial incentive to save hospitals.
This problem can be solved by the deputies of the council to which the hospital reports. Serhii Garashchuk, (Association of Ukrainian Cities), told how to do this. In short: you need to approve a 3-5 year base energy level decision and commit to allocating hospital money on a baseline basis rather than actual consumption for the past year. Deviations from the baseline are the responsibility of the hospital. If the consumption, due to cost-saving measures, was lower, the institution could manage these costs at its own discretion. If larger, you will need to find the means to make up the difference. Expert recommends using the savings, first and foremost, to reward the staff who helped save.
All training presentations (in Ukrainian) are available at https://goo.gl/2YhUoh
The event was part of the GIZ project implemented by the German Government on behalf of the German Government.
Author:
Illia Yeremenko,
Project Coordinator of EcoClub
Mob. +380634835122, +380962714773
Phone / Fax +380362267891
illia@ecoclubrivne.org