Municipality of Peshtera

The municipality is located in the South-central part of Bulgaria, in Pazardzhik Province, and has a population of 20,899 people. As a local authority, the Municipality of Peshtera develops and implements various policies – economic, social, environmental, etc. Energy efficiency and introduction of renewable energy sources and stimulation of rational use of energy is among the key priorities of the Municipality.

So far Peshtera Municipality has implemented a lot of energy saving measures such as: energy efficient street lighting in some of the municipal settlements, renovation with energy efficiency measures of public buildings, and several multi-residential buildings were also recently energy refurbished in the town of Peshtera, carrying out a preliminary survey for the pilot establishment of a biomass logistic centre. The municipality supported the setting up of an Energy Agency in Pazardzhik under the IEE programme in 2005. Energy saving potential in the public and private sectors is high, while the municipality has plenty of local unutilized energy resources. The municipality wants to mobilize local and regional stakeholders and key actors in order to achieve the transition towards a sustainable energy community, and the COOLtoRISE project brings opportunities in this field.

For the activities of this project, MoP will mainly participate in the activities which require stronger involvement of citizens and households, i.e. in the project pilot activities, because it provides various services to its citizens which is a good precondition to easily communicate and involve citizens from the region, as well as to perform activities like capacity building, training, and dissemination of project outputs. MoP will participate as a pilot project partner and will test and validate the project outcomes. It will also actively participate in the communication and dissemination activities by using its participation in the Bulgarian association of municipalities – the network comprises all 265 Bulgarian municipalities. It will also disseminate project results at local and regional level through its common media channels.