An economic appraisal of the SE(C)AP public interventions towards the EU 2050 target: The case study of Basilicata region

Abstract

Since 2008, among the European initiatives related to energy efficiency, the Covenant of the Mayors (CoM) has been one of the most important because of the significant engagement of small municipalities. The scope of the study is to understand how adherence to the EU CoM initiative by the municipalities has affected their expenditures in supporting and developing public energy efficiency investments, focusing on the analysis of the SEAPs. Two research questions are posed: firstly, exploring which are the main fields of intervention where municipalities have oriented their action plans on energy efficiency, published in SEAP (these being public lighting, education, and public buildings); secondly, the investment expenditure related to these fields of intervention that result from the first analysis and which are increased after SEAPs approval. The sample consists of 81 SEAPs evaluated and approved by the Joint Research Centre of the EU Commission of the Italian Basilicata municipalities in 2008–2021. The main result is that the education sector exhibits significant incremental changes in investment expenditures for each period, considering that, with reasonable certainty, this depends also on the CoM initiative.