City of Rakvere
Rakvere city is situated in north Estonia, 20 km south of the Gulf of Finland. It is located 98 km from Tallinn and 274 km from St. Petersburg. Rakvere is the administrative, economic and cultural centre of Lääne-Viru County. The area of the city is about 11 km². It is a green city with many parks and about 14% of its area is covered with forests. There are ca 17 000 inhabitants in Rakvere, approximately about 70% of whom live in multi-storied dwellings.
Rakvere, as the first city in Estonia to join the Covenant of Mayors, is aiming to become the leading city in energy saving in Estonia. The city is engaged in several cross-border projects in order to both raise awareness of energy savings and implement concrete measures in urban environment.
With signing the Covenant of Mayors, the city committed itself to go beyond the objectives of the EU energy policy in terms of CO2 saving through enhanced energy efficiency and cleaner energy production and use. However, Rakvere City started its path towards a Green City already before signing the Covenant in 2009.
In 2007 an energy audit for the four most common types of apartment buildings dating back to the soviet times has been realized. This audit included energy saving measures for each building type – refurbishment and retrofitting (insulation of the façades, attics and foundations). In order to guarantee the energy efficiency of these buildings in the long term, suggestions about how to renovate and manage the buildings in the future have been established.
Following this example, further energy plans and an energy use database for all municipal buildings (schools, day care centres, sports facilities etc) has been developed in order to overview the energy situation.
The city also started to use Green Energy (i.e. street lightning as well as electric energy in municipal buildings originates from renewable energy resources) as the first municipality in Estonia. To inform and involve the citizens in the energy saving activities, the “Forum for end users of apartment buildings” was held in December 2008.
A Sustainable Energy Action Plan completed in June 2009, determining the present situation for the city or Rakvere and also suggesting further actions in order to attain the goals set forth by the Covenant.
Contact
City of RakvereAnu Oja
Anu.oja@rakvere.ee
www.rakvere.ee
Tallinna 5
Rakvere 44306
Estonia
Fon: +372-322-5886
Fax: +372-322-5871