One of the main pillars of the Multiply project is the ​​6 part peer-learning workshop series, where the participant municipalities who already have some experiences and good practices in energy planning in the fields of energy consumption, transportation and land-use have the chance to share their knowledge with those municipalities who would like to enter the path and develop in integrated urban planning. Unfortunately, given the current pandemic situation, our physical workshops have to be intermitted, but Energiaklub has enabled a chance for a virtual meeting after the 1. Workshop for municipal high-level policy makers, by organizing an online workshop for the participant municipalities of the MULTIPLY project.

On 28.04.2020 Energiaklub – the Hungarian project partner of Multiply - facilitated an online workshop aiming to provide a guideline to the participant municipalities on how to elaborate their Energy Plans, that is one of the main outputs of the whole project. The Energy Plan in general will contain a descriptive part in which the municipalities need to set their strategy to reduce their CO2 emission and energy consumption, besides elaborate a financing and communication strategy to smoothly implement their purposes in practice. Complementing the decriptive part, an Excel tool had been developed by CAA, the Austrian project partner of the MULTIPLY, that helps to quantify and frame the reduction goals and actions that the municipalities plan to initiate.

All Hungarian participating municipalities had been represented with at least one expert from the field of energy or urban planning in the workshop, and acted –again- really proactively and commited to their integrated urban planning purposes. Kata Győri, expert of Energiaklub, presented the purposes and main principles of Energy Plan that was followed by a practical guidance through the Excel calculator-the supporting tool to quantify the municipalities CO2 emission and energy consumption reduction goals. After the presentation there were some remaining time for the Q&A from the municipalities regarding the elaboration of the action plan and for some dicussion if they see the data gathering process and elaboration manageable. The municipal representatives had shown how committed they are, as they approached the forthcoming data gathering and elaboration process positively and expressed their excitement about having the chance to start working on the Energy Plans.

All in all, the online workshop has been a great opportunity to at least has some virtual interaction between the participant municipalities and Energiaklub, that helps to sustain and build the relationship further even in the pandemic situation. That was admirable again to see the commitment of the participants to project’s purposes that is also extremely motivating to the facilitators working together with those municipalities in the framework of Multiply project. The elaboration of the Energy Plans in principle is an individual task of the participating municipalities, although Energiaklub assure its continuous expertise in the process, that indeed will be a very exciting period with a lot of lessons to be learnt for each sides.