PILOTS SNAPSHOTS IN SLOVAKIA
Pilot actions were conducted in six public pilot buildings, each with its specific needs and implementation possibilities.
1.2 elementary schools – Výčapy Opatovce, Rišňovce (school with kindergarten)
2.1 Kindergarten – Veľké Kostoľany
3.3 Institutional buildings – Rišňovcce, Výčapy Opatovce, Veľké Kostoľany
At the beginning of each pilot action we focused on introduction of TOGETHER and its aims and benefits. The main activity of the project was the implementation of behavioural interventions and the raise of energy effectiveness knowledge. The educational value was the most important since the largest number of participants were students and teachers. We used tools and language appropriate for group of attendants the pilot action was dedicated for. We can divide audience into two main groups according to the audience´s age.
1. Group consisting primary of students and kids (age range 4-15 years)
2. Adults working in public buildings by themselves (administrative and office clerks, local managers, engineers,) or with students (teachers).
We have paid a large amount of attention to understand special needs of specific groups and find the right approach for them to profit as much as possible from provided materials, activities, workshops and discussions. The first group, students and kids from kindergartens were really an interested, listening and reacting audience since learning by doing, by following examples and executing tasks was very interesting for them. We have built a strong base of activities we executed on the given premises and offered many following activities they were participating at when workshops were over. Naming just few we used (activities are explained in more detail in Pilot Actions Report):
- Energy Quiz about basic knowledge of energy and its usage
- Stickers distribution around the building and public space
- Daily Energy Efficiency Minimum Commitment
- Water and electricity Experiments
- Creativity workshop
- Activities with Handbook, educational video and others.
According to the given feedback, the interest was increased even after pilot activities workshops were over because we have made them to make commitments to follow specific actions and procedures. We have introduced many activities and we are now able to examine which were met with a great success and which were of a smaller one. The biggest success were activities were student’s involvement was needed such as experiments with water, electricity where student’s participation was needed. In kindergartens and lower grade classes there were the activities combined with the Handbook Energacik and experiments that had the biggest response. Adult audience was of a great challenge. Influence someone who does not have a direct financial impact on the costs is quite difficult. We are happy to have had the opportunity to conduct workshops and activities to the audience that was interested and even though their capacities were limited, they dedicated themselves deeply into activities and discussions. We have introduced the topic with a presentation followed by a quiz, had interesting discussions about daily life and building users’ needs and habits. We have closed our workshops with a questionnaire to be able to get a real feedback from participants.
- Daily Energy Efficiency Minimum Commitment: as with students we have introduced this commitment to adults and gave the opportunity to create their own list of rules to follow.
- Distribution of supporting materials such as TIPS, Handbook for children, stickers: we have printed out many copies of different TIPS that were distributed in the area of public buildings, posted to the Bulletin board where other building users can read and get information. Education materials were sent to mayors and they have distributed them via email to citizens in information campaign. Videos were distributed as well and some premises even uploaded them to their webpages.
Last but not least, pilot actions have covered not only of educational activities, but also energy management activities. Some time after the installation of smart metering system, SIEA had started with analysis of gathered data. The findings from this data, are frequently discussed with mayors and building managers in order to improve energy efficiency. We are at the begging of this process but it is already possible to see some results. Our team analyses the data on monthly basis, searching for anomalies. So far it was possible to find 3 consumption jumps (vastly increased consumption in one day) which are currently under investigation of mayors. Regarding the better management, it appears that manager of the Kindergarten, heats the building every Sunday (before week starts on Monday) unnecessarily much, resulting in very low consumption in upcoming days. Such data analysis and consulting the results with mayors and managers is only it at the beginning (due to the delay in installation), however SIEA plans to continue with the analysis and consultations at least until the end of the project in May.