Official launch of Tunisia´s project to facilitate the rapid market transformation to high energy efficiency and usage-controlling lighting technologies

Improvement in Tunisia´s sustainable energy supply situation has been limited by restricted investment in energy resources, a decline in conventional fossil fuel energy production and a great increase in national energy demand. The growing imbalance between resources and energy needs has generated a deficit which reached 62% of primary energy demand in 2020. Moreover, the energy sector is by far the largest source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Tunisia, accounting for 58% of the country’s total. The residential/building sector accounts for a significant percentage of this, with lighting standing out as one of the largest users of electricity at the household level, with a demand expected to increase by 4% per year between 2010 and 2030.

A sustainable transition to efficient lighting therefore offers huge potential for energy and greenhouse gas savings, a measure reflected in Tunisia’s NDC targets and underpinned by the national strategy for energy efficiency. However, the deployment of efficient lighting technologies in Tunisia remains considerably below that of developed countries, which have had policies and strategies in place for a number of years. With no intervention, energy efficiency improvement will be minimal, resulting in ever increasing strain on electricity infrastructure, economic development, and the global environment.

Against this background, the project Leapfrogging Tunisia’s Lighting Market to High Efficiency Technologies aims to support Tunisia by enhancing stakeholder capacity for pursuing strategic lighting policies and regulations to the best international practices, and the promotion of energy-efficient lighting technologies among end users and local manufactures.

This 3-year project, with an investment cost of $ 2.7 million, is a partnership between the National Agency for Energy Management (ANME) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) United for Efficiency (U4E) initiative, supported by funding from the Global Environment Facility (GEF). It consists of four integrated components:

1. Regulatory mechanisms, including the update of minimum energy performance standards (MEPS) for lighting products and associated labelling requirements,
2. Support policies for the deployment of high-efficiency lighting technologies, which includes support to local manufactures to transition to the production of LED lamps and improve product quality.
3. Enhanced monitoring, verification and enforcement national capacities for lighting products market surveillance in accordance with MEPS and labelling.
4. Environmentally sound management operational framework, to ensure that the transition is undertaken in an environmentally friendly manner via the implementation of a national system for the responsible collection, recycling and/or disposal of lighting products containing hazardous materials.

The official start of the project was marked by the first meeting of the Steering Committee (COPIL) by videoconference on 27 May 2021.  Chaired by Mr Fethi Hanchi, Director General of ANME and National Director of the project, the meeting introduced the individual members, who include representatives from ANME, Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Energy, Mines and Renewable Energies (MEMER) and Ministry of Local Affairs and Environment (MALE), and the operating framework of the committee. It provided an opportunity for the key technical stakeholders to reiterate their commitment to the project and for guidelines to be formulated for the implementation of the project and for the action plan for the first year to be approved. In a follow up to this meeting, the wider stakeholder group were invited to a formal inception workshop on 7 June 2021.  This workshop presented the key components of the project, its objective, and its importance as part of Tunisia’s energy transition policy. It encouraged participants to explore and take advantage of synergies with similar or complementary past or present projects.

For more information on the project, contact soledad.garcia@un.org.