VIMERCATE’S MUNICIPALITY (MILAN)
ENERGY PLANNING

Status

Vimercate, a few kilometers from Milan and bordering the City of Arcore, is a city that enjoys a beautiful old and has several historical monuments. The life of the City has been characterized in recent years by the creation of the famous "Torri Bianche" observable in photographs (source wikipedia), which soon became an important business and commercial center able to give an increasing commercial momentum to the new local reality. Among the other new structures that have enhanced the reputation of the city, the new hospital in Oreno designed by the famous architect Mario Botta. Due to the incrising commercial momentum, and to the special attention paid to energy conservation, that in recent years have characterized the activities of technicians and administrators of the local Environmental Office, the Municipality has entrusted CREA Engineering with the task to prepare the Municipality Energy Planning.

The work done

The main characteristic that in agreement with the administrators and technicians of local Environmental Office, the Energy Planning is intended to give the city, was that the energy plan could be immediately operational. It aimed to prepare a project that had innovative features and whose concrete actions in the field of energy saving where fast, feasible and visible from citizenship. Conversely, the risk would be to have a good assessment of the energy situation (only papers), however not supported by an operational phase that made sense to the citizen the real intention of reducing fuel consumption by the Municipality. To this end, beyond the audit phase and identification of consumption, characteristic of the first step of an Energy Planning action, the work of energy-saving design was implemented through the establishment of a Energy Municipal cadastre.

The Municipal Energy Cadastre

The Energy Plan provides that through a Council resolution will be made mandatory, starting from condominium, the obligation to communicate annually, through the website of the Energy Cadastre, the fuel consumption of the block, together with a few other building features. The Energy Cadastre’s Office , through the use of a software prepared by CREA Engineering, is able to identify which of the consumption already communicated, is abnormal and can be optimized with intervention costs that have less than 4 - 5 years pay back time. The office then suggested the condominium that can take advantage of a revolving economic fund to improve energy efficiency at no cost, by an intervention planned and directed under the supervision of the Energy Cadastre’s Office. The condominium will refund the amount of the revolving fund, with the annual dues of savings cost, compared to the previous consumption. Once the economic amount was returned by the condominium, the revolving fund will be destined to another condominium.

The results

The work carried out will enable the Municipality, through the progressive implementation of the Municipal Energy Plan and the Energy Cadastre’s Office, to obtain significant benefit in terms of energy saving and environmental improvement. To the Citizens will be given the opportunity to experience immediately the effectiveness of the plan and to benefit from a significant annual energy savings. Even the local reality of installation companies will benefit from the actions of the plan; progressive and large-scale interventions will inevitably generate positive impacts in terms of work and employment.