Energy Efficiency in Public Buildings in BiH

With the potential to reduce the average energy use by about 60%, public buildings have been identified as the sector with the largest potential for cost-effective energy saving in BIH, by applying interventions on buildings to increase their energy efficiency and thus enhance energy performance. Considering the critical amount of power consumption in public buildings, increasing energy efficiency can present an opportunity to tackle the climate change and air pollution problems, while having a positive impact on the overall energy stability and sustainable growth of BIH. In addition to this, in order to achieve membership to the European Union, BIH must ensure complete compliance with EU standards and regulations and has to eventually achieve the EU energy and climate goals. This paper provides a brief overview of energy efficiency in BIH with an emphasis on EU targets and visions related to EE. Furthermore, it describes the related EE legal framework, the public buildings sector and major initiatives and EE projects in BIH. Finally, the paper shortly presents the technical implementation process for public buildings EE projects and provides an estimation of potential energy savings and benefits.