Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Especially in the building sector, which is ruled and controlled at Municipal
level, putting in place on the territory a 'bottom up' involvement that now seems to
be a shared element in all energy policies aiming at a real change.
5.2
The Revision of Municipal Building Codes in the Context
of Regional Policies for Energy in Italy
Recently, many Italian regions have issued regional Guidelines for the definition
of rules such as urban planning regulations, aiming at energy and environment
valorisation (Dall'O and Galante
2009
).
The aim of these Guidelines is to define a univocal set of contents for the
updating of municipal building codes from a sustainable perspective.
In this way, the Municipal administration could integrate and implement
objectives and requirements aiming at environmental sustainability of buildings, in
line with the tools of regional energy planning.
The regulatory framework in which is in the definition of a model of building
code for municipalities, issued at the regional level, is related to the actions
necessary to achieve the goals by 2020 seats to the regions of Italy and agreed at
the national and European level.
The commitments at European level, synthetically represented by the 20-20-20
model, and declined at national level for the different regions by the so called
''Burden Sharing'', Italian Ministerial Decree March 15th (
2012
), have given each
region, coherently with the National Action Plan,
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intermediate and final objec-
tives. These objectives refer to the coverage of energy consumption from
renewable energy sources as compared to the gross final consumption of thermal
and electrical energy as well as the energy used for transportations (such per-
centage for Sicily is for example equal to 15.9 % by 2020).
Even if the reduction of the gross final energy consumption is not a constraining
objective for regional administrations, it is clear that with a reduction of the gross
final consumptions, the regions can more easily reach the objective. The portion to
be covered using renewable energy sources, indeed, is fixed by the Decree as the
ratio between the amount of gross final energy consumptions, to be covered using
renewable energy sources, and the gross final energy consumption of the region. If
the latter is reduced, the target percentage can be reached more easily.
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The National Action Plan, Directive 2009/28/CE of the European Parliament and of the
Council, April 23rd 2009, based on the incentivation of the use of renewable sources for the
energy needs, is a programming document. The latter gives detailed indications about the actions
to be set out in order to reach by 2020, the constraining objective for Italy to cover the 17 % of
the gross national consumptions through renewable energy. The objective can be reached using
renewables sources in the following areas: Electricity, Heating-Cooling and transportations (in
