Implementing the Energy Efficiency First Principle in Regional Planning

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The EU Energy Efficiency First (EE1st) principle has addressed to some extent in the National Energy and Climate Plans; however, when it comes to the regional and local governance levels, this principle is not yet explicit in the public debate. The overarching aim of REGIO1ST is to raise awareness about the EE1ST principle among the regional governments and their agencies and support them to make related decisions in their planning. It pursues to provide appropriate guidance to regional authorities to embed the E1st principle in their decisions and implementation of their development and energy planning departing from six participant regions and expanding to over 100 regions in the EU. Furthermore, it will establish a community of practice for E1st in cooperation with the Covenant of Mayors to ensure political commitment of the regional authorities and finally, it aims to Support the introduction of EE1st in National Energy Action Plans and foster the enforcement of the Multilevel Climate and Energy Dialogue provision. This policy process will be assisted with a customized decision support tool for regions, which will include a citizen deliberation set of practices for engaging and eliciting preferences of stakeholders and citizens. This co-design of policy trajectories will bring EE1st at the core of the dialogue and increase its social acceptance.