The Cinderella of east European buildings: energy conservation opportunities and barriers in municipal lighting

The world-record energy intensities in Central and East European (CEE) countries have warranted a large number international and local efforts to improve energy efficiency in CEE buildings. As a result, many domestic and commercial buildings have been renovated or built using state-of-the-art, efficient technologies. However, one building sector, which is probably the most in need for an upgrade, the municipally and state financed buildings, are mainly still operating with old, obsolete, and rundown energy technologies.

While many experts point out that these buildings may house the most significant energy and carbon savings potentials in the region's buildings, the severe lack of capital, among many other barriers, seriously hamper the badly needed energy retrofits.

Energy efficiency is not only important in these buildings from the Kyoto perspective, but lowering utility bills is a key for the everyday operation of schools and hospitals, which sometimes need to be closed because there is not enough money to cover energy costs.

Whereas many international and local efforts have aimed at efficiency retrofits of these buildings, our limited understanding of the technology mix, savings potentials, cost-effectiveness and the complexities in institutional and financial arrangements often prevent programs from being able to make a real difference.

The current poster represents a special unified effort from the side of several stake-holders - an international environmental fund, lighting manufacturers, utilities and academia - to gain a detailed understanding of the area often targeted by municipal energy efficiency programs: lighting.

A representative market survey has been designed and executed by the author in Hungarian hospitals and educational buildings to map lighting technology mix, energy use patterns, key problems and concerns about lighting systems, and the barriers towards efficient system retrofits.

While the numeric findings of the paper are confined to represent one country, most trends and key issues identified are expected to be typical for the region, and can significantly help the design of municipal energy efficiency programs and policies in CEE.