What is the situation?

Ukraine’s Education Sector, under the responsibility of the Ministry of Education and Science, is made up of over 22,000 educational establishments consisting of primary, secondary and vocational training schools, universities and institutes. While the Ministry is responsible for all academic programmes, maintenance of primary and secondary schools (a total of 21,264) is the responsibility of the Municipality/Oblast (regional) Administration under whose jurisdiction each school is located; in the year 2002, the responsibility for general education was decentralised and transferred to the regions. Primary and secondary schools are owned and operated by Oblasts/Municipalities, as the case may be and whose budgets have to finance school construction, maintenance and utilities. Expenditures for education are covered either by the regional budget, or the municipal budget. Post-secondary educational institutions, including most vocational schools, still fall under the responsibility of the federal government.

Educational buildings throughout Ukraine are mostly heated by district heating systems based mainly on coal and natural gas. The annual budget earmarked for supplying electricity, heat and hot water to each school during the winter heating season varies, depending on school size, but averages approx. $ 40,000. It is estimated that this budget could be reduced by 20-25% with a corresponding reduction in GHG emissions of more than 60,000 tons of CO₂ during a project’s lifetime of 20 years, if energy efficiency measures were implemented at each institution. Thus, implementation of these measures would have an investment payback period of 4-5 years while, simultaneously, contributing to the abatement of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by improving energy efficiency in Ukraine’s educational facilities. Furthermore, increased awareness and knowledge of the school-going children (the future generation), coupled with the awareness that they would, in turn, generate among their parents, will contribute to energy savings through changes in behaviour.

What is our mission?

With the support of funding from the Japan-UNDP Partnership Fund, the project will play a catalytic role in assisting Ukraine to capture the huge potential for implementing energy efficiency measures in the educational sector in an efficient and sustainable manner. To achieve this, the project will raise the awareness of schoolchildren on global warming issues and climate change mitigation options as part of their curriculum, assist them in acquiring skills in energy efficiency through practical/laboratory work, train teachers and trainers/parents to achieve a multiplier effect, sensitize key national players on policy issues (e.g. need to introduce multi-year energy budget allocation to educational institutions) and demonstrate the technical, economic and financial effectiveness of implementing pilot energy efficiency measures at selected educational institutions.

How are we doing this?

The project consists of 4 main outcomes that are described below.

Outcome 1: A country-wide energy efficiency education programme at intermediate/high schools is established.

The activities necessary to achieve this outcome will include building upon the work initiated under the SPARE (School Project for the Application of Resources and Energy, see below) initiative to establish a country-wide energy efficiency education programme at intermediate/high schools for teachers and pupils and create increased pubic (parent) awareness and motivation, through information dissemination campaigns. This will have the net effect of increasing awareness of schoolchildren (and their parents) to global warming issues and climate change mitigation options as part of their curriculum and support them to acquire additional knowledge and skills in energy efficiency through practical/laboratory work.

Outcome 2: Revised Municipalities/Oblast Administrations policies and guidelines for budget allocation to educational institutions.

The activities related to this outcome will include a review of existing policies and guidelines of Municipalities/Oblast Administrations and make proposals/recommendations for amending them, with a view to enabling educational institutions under their jurisdiction to apply for loans/enter into contractual agreements with ESCOs to implement energy efficiency measures. For example, decision-makers will be sensitized to the allocation of multi-year energy budgets, instead of the present annual allocation, to educational institutions; this will facilitate utilization of savings for investments in energy efficiency. In addition, policies and guidelines will be developed to decentralise the decision-making process that will enable individual school principals to do likewise at their respective schools and, consequently, reduce their energy bills.

Outcome 3: Energy efficiency programme established at pilot schools.

The activities related to this outcome will demonstrate the feasibility, effectiveness and cost-efficiency of proposed energy efficiency measures in educational facilities under a pilot programme. This pilot programme will cover 3 representative schools (one each of a City, Oblast and Rural schools) preferably close to Rivne City (where the existing ESCO-Rivne is located) and is aimed at, subsequent to an energy audit, implementing cost-efficient energy efficiency measures to mitigate GHG emissions (installation of heat distribution points, increased piping/building insulation, replacement of doors/windows with double-insulated ones, etc.), verifying the technical and cost performance of the efficiency measures selected and identifying major obstacles and lessons learned in order to incorporate these into the management tools and guidelines for planning and implementation of replication projects. Thus, this activity is designed to provide the hard data on investments required and the associated payback periods so as to serve as a vehicle to facilitate future replication of similar measures in other educational facilities in Ukraine.

Moreover, this activity will support the students at these schools to acquire additional knowledge and skills in energy efficiency/conservation (energy audit/energy management) through practical/laboratory work.

Outcome 4: Project experience/best practices and lessons learned are replicated throughout Ukraine (and other countries in the region).

The activities necessary to achieve this outcome will involve the compilation and distribution of best practices and lessons learned and will provide opportunities for broad exposure to other Oblasts (and countries in the region).

How will Ukraine benefit?

The Ukrainian schools will benefit from this project by receiving the clear and simple mechanism of energy efficiency increasing. This will allow significant reduction of energy bills and the saved money can be invested in other educational needs / activities. In addition to the reduced energy consumption and related economic benefits, the implementation of planned measures would substantially reduce the number of illnesses among pupils/students during the winter months, illnesses related to cold classrooms due to poor and inefficient heating, insufficient insulation of doors and windows that give rise to drafts of cold air. The Government attaches very high importance to the health issues associated with cold classrooms, which negatively impact on children’s education. Education plays a central role in families’ lives, from the point of view of better social and economic opportunities, but some parents are really concerned to send their children to cold classrooms where they frequently get sick. This impacts on the economic and social lives of the parents themselves in that they sometimes have to skip work to attend to their sick children. On the other hand, the children frequently have to miss school and are, therefore, denied proper education that can ensure them a better life/improved economic opportunities in the future.

 
Who are our partners?

Rivne Municipality

Rivne Oblast State Administration

Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine

Ministry of Environmental Protection of Ukraine

ESCO-Rivne

School Project for Application of Resources and Energy (SPARE)

Implementation approach

This project proposes to capitalise on the competencies developed by ESCO-Rivne in the communal heat sector under the UNDP-GEF project and provide it with the necessary tools that will enable it to easily expand its activities to cover implementation of energy efficiency measures in the educational sector. Hence, the geographical target of this project will initially be the Rivne Oblast where ESCO-Rivne is most active in energy efficiency in partnership with the private sector. Moreover, the experience gained in the educational energy efficiency sector will prove very useful in the future in that it will enable similar activities to be replicated in other parts of Ukraine and the neighbouring countries having similar climatic conditions and with the full support of the private sector. In addition to the use of the media and publications to disseminate the results of the initiatives in the educational sector, ESCO-Rivne will post these results/lessons learned on its existing web site (www.esco-rivne.com). Finally, the project will develop synergies with the “Energy Savings” training course elaborated within the framework of the SPARE project which seeks the active involvement of educational institutions in scientific and practical activities related to climate change mitigation.

In the municipal district heating sector, ESCO-Rivne is presently working with local financial institutions to provide credit to Municipalities, Oblast Administrations, etc. through the setting up of credit risk instruments. While the local financial market has sufficient liquidity to provide capital for investment, it sets a high interest rate because of perceived risks and high transaction costs related to loans for energy-related activities. Thus, implementation of the pilots in the educational sector and the related outcome will provide ESCO-Rivne and potential investors with sufficient data to demonstrate replicability through a business model, just like in the case of municipal district heating.