On Wednesday, September 8, 2021, the city of Sumy showed the results of thermal refurbishment of secondary education institutions in accordance with the EU standards.
In 2018 the city started implementation of the EU project “Raising Energy Efficiency in Educational Facilities of the City of Sumy”. The project presupposed refurbishment of three educational institutions: specialized schools No. 7 and No. 9, as well general education school No. 20.
According to the project manager Kateryna Havrylova, the city has selected the institutions the buildings of which are not typical as of our climate zone and in which energy consumption is above average for the city, therefore, energy efficiency improvement for those schools was extremely important.
Refurbishment works in the Sumy specialized school No. 7 have already been completed: the central building of the school has been insulated and an individual heating point has been installed. That is one of the largest schools in Ukraine: the overall area of the school is 14,754.1 sq.m. 1,979 pupils study here.
The thermal, refurbishment works in specialized school No. 9 are already about to finish. Within the project ventilation has been replaced in the gym and in the food unit – that will ensure fresh air circulation in those premises. The roof, walls and the socle of the building have been insulated, and all windows have been replaced with energy-efficient ones. Today the works related to insulation of the roof of the old school building and façade painting are still going on.
In school No. 20 capital repairs of the lighting system have been performed: 1,298 energy-saving lamps have been installed.
It is expected that all those measures will enable to reduce the amount of annual energy consumption to 30% (heat energy in schools No. 7 and No. 9 and electricity in school No. 20), which, in its turn, will enable to save public funds of the Sumy City Territorial Community. According to preliminary estimates, as the result of implementation of the whole project, СО2 emissions will go down by 232.2 tons a year, which replaces planting of 10,727 trees that could absorb such amount of carbon dioxide.
The acting city mayor Mykhaylo Bondarenko has indicated that the “Covenant of Mayors – Demonstration Projects” initiative has enabled Sumy to show its capacity and readiness to participate in the international-scale projects. And, most important, thanks to the thermal refurbishment measures, it will be possible to improve the conditions of study for schoolchildren, to save money for Sumy City Territorial Community as far as payments for energy carriers are concerned, as well as to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere.
“Participation in this grant project was a challenge – primarily, for our experts who were interested in the project promotion as well as for the community, since we had to show not just the interest, but the capacity to implement such projects and to cooperate with the European Union”, – stated the acting city mayor Mykhaylo Bondarenko. – This project allows to apply an economical approach to consumption of energy resources (energy safety of each specific facility finally leads to the energy independence of the whole state), to ensure reduced consumption of energy resources and reduced СО2 emission into the air. Also, the project raises the awareness of Sumy residents of the issues of advanced technology application in the field of energy saving and energy efficiency”.
The cost of the project “Raising Energy Efficiency in Educational Facilities of the City of Sumy” is 1,635,362.4 Euros (70% – the EU grant, 30% – community budget).
In September 2015 Sumy City Council joined the “Covenant of Mayors”, and in 2016 it approved its Sustainable Energy Action Plan for the city of Sumy until 2025 (SEAP). The document determines a range of strategic projects aimed at raising energy efficiency of the municipal economy, their impact on the СО2 emission reduction.
The main goal of SEAP of the city of Sumy until 2025 is to reduce CO2 emission by 26.2% (134.2 thousand t of СО2) due to the implementation of energy-efficient measures; to reduce annual energy resources consumption by 21.3 %, or by 371.7 thousand MW∙hours; to reduce the share of natural gas due to the use of alternative resources by 5.8%, which makes 10.8 mln. cub. m; to reduce annual spending on fuel and energy resources by at least 344.3 mln. UAH.