1. Introduction of Hungarian case study area: Szada

Szada is a 1671 ha sized village in the Budapest agglomeration, Pest county, Hungary, with 4480 inhabitants. The village’s lifestyle has turned more and more to a commuting one during the last 50 years due to its proximity to the capital and its work opportunities. This fact is shown by the high rate of uncultivated fields on the arable land, although earlier Szada was famous for its vegetable and fruit growers (Fruitful Saint Szada).

The next table shows the present land use categories of the village:

On Szada’s arable fields the low-fertility sandy soils are characteristic. The relief is various: the North-Eastern part of the village is hilly (Gödöllő Hills Landscape Protection Area) with several wells. Here can be found the main forest areas of Szada too. Moving to the South-West, the landscape changes to a plain where we can find the majority of arable areas (see Map 2).

Map 2: Land use categories of the village and the Natura 2000 areas of Szada and near the village

Source: CLC 100, OTAB, Nature databases

The new Settlement Structure Plan of Szada foresees significant changes in land use: a considerable part of arable land will be converted to gardens and attached to the inner territory over the following years. This trend is, however, not surprising in the agglomeration area.

2. Energy use patterns and energy demand of Szada

Determining the energy needs of the settlement we took the municipal institutions’ consumption as well as the residential energy consumption into account. The data sets have been provided by the mayor's office energy bills (public consumption) and local statistics of the Central Statistical Office (private consumption). In both cases, three-year average consumption was taken into consideration.

According to the registrations of the technical department of the municipality:

• 50% of the households are poorly or not at all insulated, despite the fact that insulation can save up to 70% of the heating energy
• only three out of ten municipal buildings are insulated and windows have been modernized only in six buildings
• all municipal buildings and 70% of households use gas heating, the rest of the households use a mix of gas and firewood feedstock
• the energetic modernization of municipal buildings has been carried out by considering condensing gas boilers

Figure 2: Energy use patterns and energy demand of Szada community

The figure shows the sum of energy consumption of the entire population, which appears mainly in gas consumption for heating and in the form of endosomatic energy demand (the energy content of consumed food). In comparison to the residential energy use, the public or municipal energy consumption is very low, and emerges primarily in the form of natural gas demand.

3. Renewable energy potential of Szada

In the first approach, the biomass energy potential was determined within the borders of the municipality. However, the forest areas had to be considered on a wider range outside the village borders, because there are only small forest patches within. For arable land it was important to consider the development plan framework (a considerable amount of arable land will be converted to building areas and gardens), because in building areas the biomass yield is limited. The possibility of biomass production is greatly influenced by the fact that the tenure is quite fragmented - many producers have their lands in 5-10 small patches, and the most suitable areas for energy crops are under Natura 2000 protection (see Map 2).

The other major source of energetic biomass is forest land. Szada has 274.57 ha forest area, i.e. the 16.43 % of its territory. The major part of the forests (118.9 ha) belongs to the state, managed by the Pilis Park Forest Office, Gödöllő Forestry Company. The local government owns 21.96 hectares of forest and the remaining 133.71 ha is in private hands.

Our calculations demonstrated that the forest biomass potential from the territory of the settlement is only 0.8 TJ/year, which does not satisfy the current public heat energy consumption either.

In contrast, the forest block of Szada is a larger operating unit of the Gödöllő Forestry Company, with 2000 ha forest in the territory of 6 villages. The bioenergy potential of this block (42,8 TJ/year) could be a replacement alternative for a significant proportion of the municipal and even of the residential natural gas energy consumption.

The Gödöllő Forestry Company emphasized their interest in supporting the energetic biomass use of Szada both as the provision of firewood and as investments in heat production. Based on our consultations with them, in our calculations we took into account the forest potential of the whole forest block of Szada.

Figure 3 compares the available renewable energy potential with the local energy consumption. The biomass potential was calculated from the forest block of Szada and the arable land potential with the installation of 100 ha of SRC willow energy crop.

Figure 3: Comparison of the local heat consumption and the renewable energy potential in Szada

Evidently, in addition to the energetic use of biomass it is recommended to examine the potential of energy efficiency and of solar heat production as well. Estimating the solar heat potential we considered the installation of solar collectors for 1,620 households, producing 9 GJ/year/household thermal energy. Regarding these options, we elaborated three different scenarios from available technologies considering the costs of different self-sufficiency levels (Table 2).

Table 2. The self-sufficiency level and the investment cost of different technology combination scenarios

4. The characteristics of current renewable energy use

Over the past years, the Szada village tried to start with energy independence using mainly two technologies:

• In 2007 Szada was interested in the establishment of a biogas plant, whose feasibility study was prepared by SIU. The idea of the biogas plant finally proved to be uneconomical because of the lack of agricultural by-products, and thus it was rejected.
• In 2008, Szada acquired the necessary permits for drilling two geothermal wells, and in the same year it also started the dressing works of the first well. But this investment was soon ended due to an unexpected explosion of gas, when the drill-rod broke into the previously drilled wells. The investor then withdrew from the project, though the local government remained still interested in the implementation and utilization of the geothermal heating for heating both the public institutions and greenhouses nearby.
• Energy efficiency investments have been continuously taking place in recent years adjusted to the fiscal framework of the municipality (only three out of ten municipal buildings were insulated and windows have been modernized only in six buildings).
• Some private initiatives have also appeared in the village: a certified passive house, solar energy use with solar collectors for domestic hot water production.

During our planning activity several significant progresses have been made in the village:

• in late winter the local primary school re-installed the old boiler that had not been used over the past 30 years and fed it with the wood from public forests and green spaces, with which the municipality could reach considerable savings (6000-7000 €/heating season)
• due to the positive experience, during spring and early summer time the firewood was already accumulated behind the school for the next year for the old boiler (Figure 4)
• an energetic subcommittee was established within the town-council, which undertook the coordination of local energy issues (communication, project coordination)
• the town-council approved the elaboration of a tender (Central Hungary Operational Programme) for PV cells installation on several municipal buildings near the school, with the aim of power self-sufficiency of these buildings (35 kW planned capacity)
• a local Climate Club is outlined with several interested parties: a local wood chip manufacturing businessman offers his professional help in the organizational and communicational tasks, the mayor assists the initiative with theoretical contributions and by providing sites for the gatherings. The Gödöllő Climate Club (1.5 years operational experience) also offered a training program for a potential leader of the local initiative within their “Small footprint” Central Hungarian training program, which will be launched in September 2011.

5. Proposed strategic developments

Considering the energy consumption characteristics of Szada (Fig. 2), the strategy placed special emphasis on encouraging the public energetic developments, because this is the only way of significant progress in achieving greater energy independence, which has been formulated as the strategy's overall objective.

Presently the energy efficiency and renewable energy investment are hindered by several factors:

• the cohesive coordination of the settlement’s energy affairs is not managed
• many inhabitants are uninformed about available energy efficiency and renewable energy improvements
• at present public support is not available for households
• there is a limited number of financially strong households who are able to finance the energetic investments
• the local government has difficulties in raising funds for the required own contribution for tenders

To solve these problems and to accelerate energetic improvements, we formulated the following necessary actions according to the three priorities:

• 1st Priority: Municipal collaboration and coordination
  • - Energy Agency
  • - Energy Subcommittee of the town-council

• 2nd Priority: Dissemination and information

- Articles and events
- Climate Club of Szada

• 3rd Priority: Energy saving and renewable energy investments

- Coordinated common energy audits
- Insulation and renewable energy investments coordinated and supported by acquisition communities
- Support of community energy crops

For the first phase of the energy strategy implementation we developed the "RENEWABLE SZADA PROGRAM", which contains the necessary first steps for the government and the public.

RENEWABLE SZADA PROGRAM 1st phase

6. Experiences of RESP work

The planning work on the case study area of Szada has been running for more than a year. During this period we organized four public forums and a farmers’ forum. Additionally, smaller discussions with the leadership of the village were also organized. The themes of the forums were defined along the steps of the RESP process. Since the development of the methodology had been based on the results of foreign literature, some parts did not or only hardly work under
Hungarian conditions.

Experiences:

• it was difficult to mobilize the population - only the personal calls were effective (talks with acquaintances, phone calls)
• the information flow was not satisfactory: in spite of the local website and local newspaper articles, the forums’ posters (15 to 20 pieces of poster / forum) and invitations (150-200 titles / forum) we couldn’t reach the population on a wider range
• we were not satisfactorily informed either: we were not informed about the developments concerning energy issues, projects during the common planning work, we received the information accidentally, mainly because the leaders of the village did not understand which was the important information for the strategic planning work
• it relates to the fact that there were no actual responsible persons for the energy issues in the village, the information was running on parallel independent channels
• the definition of the real potentials was problematic, because only a fraction of the theoretical potential calculated on an area basis can be involved in energetic utilization, due to the several limiting factors: fragmented land structure, limitations of nature conservation areas, typically elderly farmers, etc.
  long-term strategic thinking was not typical among the local people, they have expected concrete projects and immediate development.
  only the developments where they could actually apply for a grant were interesting for them. As long as the new subsidization scheme was not published (New Széchenyi Plan), they did not want to enter into the planning process
  we found just a few private initiatives, because it is said that the use of renewable energy is still a "privilege of the rich"
  the energy strategy concentrating merely on the energetic utilization of biomass did not meet the local needs in Szada and could not provide a satisfactory level of energy independence

Conclusions:

• the strategy-making process takes time, the planning should wait until the “settling” of the local initiatives is launched
• at the beginning of the planning process it is necessary to engage local groups, formed from local officials, entrepreneurs, policy makers, farmers, etc. who have a professional view and local knowledge on the one hand, and understand the purpose of the strategy and feel the importance of long-term thinking on the other.
• with their involvement in the planning process they will be the owners of the output and the level of responsibility can be raised, and the principle of subsidiarity can be applied
• it is also important to form (formally and functionally as well) an official and formal subcommittee or working group within the town-council, which is responsible for the energy issues of the settlement, emphasizes energy affairs, and acts as a mediator between the planning team, local decision makers and the residents
• we consider that the energy strategy of a settlement has to contain all the available renewable energy potential, including the proposals of its utilization technologies too
• it’s very important that the appropriate national development policies for renewable energy are available, since both the local governments’ and the population’s decisions are highly influenced by them
  the development of subsidy constructions with low own contributions and moderate investment costs covered by energy bills savings (ESCO type of finances) would reach a wider audience

The results and experiences above inspire us to further fine tune our energy planning methodology, adjusting it more to the Hungarian conditions. Our ultimate goal is to mobilize an increasing number of social groups to use renewable energy as well as to adapt more and more renewable energy systems to local conditions and to local interests.

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