Feasibility Study for a National Program to Support Energy Management in Tunisian Municipalities Under the Framework of the Alliance des Communes pour la Transition Énergétique (ACTE, Alliance of Municipalities for the Energy Transition)

Tunisia’s municipalities are central actors in the country’s energy transition, playing a strategic role in implementing energy efficiency measures and deploying renewable energy solutions as outlined in the national energy transition strategy and the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC). Over the past decade, the Tunisian government has, therefore, established the Alliance des Communes pour la Transition Énergétique (ACTE, Alliance of Municipalities for the Energy Transition) program. Launched in 2015 and implemented by the National Agency for Energy Management (ANME), the program is intended to support municipalities in adopting energy conservation measures within their facilities and operations. Through a pilot phase, 14 municipalities benefited from technical and financial program support, and ANME expressed its intention to scale up the program to all the 350 municipalities across Tunisia.

In this context, the French Development Agency (AFD) commissioned Econoler to conduct a feasibility study to design a new program phase to enable broader geographic coverage and an expanded set of supported decarbonization measures.

As part of this mandate, Econoler carried out the following tasks:

• Completed and updated a mapping of initiatives and projects contributing to the energy transition in Tunisia and to the communal action in the combat against climate change and its effects;

• Conducted an in-depth assessment of the results of the ACTE pilot phase to draw lessons learned for the subsequent phases and recommendations thereto;

• Designed a mechanism for setting up a nationwide ACTE program, including institutional and financial schemes.

At the end of the project, ANME was equipped with an updated mechanism for the ACTE program, enabling it to broaden its scope of interventions and cover all Tunisian municipalities.