On Wednesday, March 28, 2017, the municipality of Nabeul organized the inauguration ceremony of the SUDEP project. The ceremony was attended by Mr. Khaled Kaddour, Minister of Energy and Mines, and Mr. Patrice Bergamini, the Ambassador of the European Union in Tunis.

This inauguration concerned the two photovoltaic plants and 200 public lighting funded by EU and realized in the framework of the SUDEP project. The plants (a total of 233.5 kWp) will provide energy for municipality building and street lighting and for waste water treatment of the city and Hamdi Harrouch, General Director of Naytional Agency for Energy Conservation-Tunis

These plants allowed energy saving about 40% of energy cosumption of Municipality building and waste water plant of National Sanitation Office of Tunis (ONAS).

On the sidelines of this ceremony, a debate on the results obtained and perspectives was organized and during which several national institutions, civil society, foreign partners -ICU (italian company) who carried out the project, and the municipalities had been present and Federica Pesce, Planning and Programming Assistant -European Commission and Naceur Hammami Team Leader of SUDEP-South project

Mr. Fethi Hanchi National Focal Point of SUDEP project and Director of Energy Efficiency at the National Agency (ANME) and Oussama Nagati, Focal Point (ANME) directly involved in the implementation of the project announced 3 important points:

1. The national energy efficiency and energy transition strategy within the municipalities hadbeen approved by the Tunisian Government in the framework of a law published in July 2017. This strategy would allow all the municipalities to benefit from all the advantages in terms of subsidies, credits, tax and customs benefits to realize their energy transition programs.
2. Each municipality is entitled to a state subsidy of 70% with a ceiling of 200 000 TND (environ70 000 €) and technical assistance for the implementation of specific studies, feasibility studies, investment studies and energy audits in    energy transition area.
3. The National Agency for Energy Conservation(ANME ) created an office within the municipality of Nabeul and provides a local expert with 20 years of experience to assist the municipality of Nabeul and the 32 municipalities of the Governorate of Nabeul to develop, implement, monitor and evaluate the energy transition program and ensure the sustainability of the SUDEP project. The agency's policy is to establish an office in each of the 24 governorates at the national level

The SUDEP-South project began in early 2015 with 12 cities in 6 countries of the southern Mediterranean. The objective of the SUDEP Programme is to assist local authorities in responding to the sustainable energy challenges and to enable them to implement sustainable energy actions leading to energy savings, energy efficiency and more use of renewable energy sources such as solar energy.

SUDEP support mechanism activities are mainly focused on:

1.      Assistance to local authorities and reinforcing their capacities and their partners in the implementation of the demonstration projects.

2.      Promotion for the replication of innovative actions and the visibility of the programme’s results.

3.      Creation of an enabling environment for the exchange of good practices between project beneficiaries.

4.      And finally the development of their own local strategies to ensure widespread dissemination and sustainability of their projects.