DETOCS First Regional Stakeholders Meeting - Bulgaria

The Municipality of Burgas, hosted its first stakeholders group meeting for the DETOCS Project (co-funded by the Interreg Europe Programme 2021-2027) on Thursday, August 17, 2023, at the Cultural Center "Sea Casino", Burgas, Bulgaria.

The technical Bulgarian partner, Regional Energy Agency of Pazardjik - REAP also took part in this first local project event, alongside various stakeholders, the likes of representatives of public administrations and tourist sector, NGOs, energy agencies, and SMEs association's. Most of these organisations comprise of high-quality experts in specific sectors like tourism, energy, environment protection, entrepreneurship, and policymaking. 

Experts from the two Bulgarian partners presented the Interreg Europe DETOCS project to the various stakeholders, represented during the presentation were the project's main objectives, background on the partnership itself, policies to be tackled by different project partners, and upcoming activities on interregional study visits, exchanges of experience and identification of best practices.

Representatives of Burgas municipality made a presentation of their newly established Energy Help Desk which will provide consultations on energy topics to citizens and entrepreneurs in Burgas, as well as a “Solar map”, which will contain information on solar energy potentials of buildings’ roofs.    

During this session, there were invited speakers from the tourist sector and also the energy sector, who presented best practices achieved in the tourist sector. The presentation topics were:

• Sustainable tourism and energy savings in Albena AD, a resort located at the Bulgarian Black Sea;
• Benefits of introducing RES in tourist, commercial and industrial sites (presentation of the steps for building photovoltaic installations and completed sites;
• Energy efficient solutions in public buildings and tourist sites (Hotel Bulgaria, city of Burgas)

A discussion was initiated between stakeholders and Bulgarian project partners on how to initiate and implement best practices in the area of tourism based on local and sustainable RES and implementation of energy saving measures. Within this initial stakeholders meeting, the Bulgarian partners also focused on identifying needs, finding solutions, and highlighting the advantages, challenges, and opportunities at local and regional level, i.e. at municipal level in Burgas Municipality in the new programming period from 2021 to 2027.