Summary
The RES Champions league project will facilitate the smooth adaptation of municipalities to the fast evolving energy context. Despite their awareness of climate change and growing oil prices, elected persons and technical staff of municipalities are often disappointed because
they don’t always know which solutions to implement to tackle these issues.

The RES Champions league will create both a network of municipalities who will cooperate and share their views and solutions for the development of RES (Renewable energy sources), considering the network will include both front-runners and followers, and a positive and emulative competition between municipalities encouraging them to invest in RES. The RES champions league will focus mainly on the solar and efficient wood sectors,while being open to integrate new renewable sectors.

The establishment of the Bulgarian RES League - a national competition that ranks cities in terms of their use of renewable energy (RE) sources, was announced in Bansko on the 10th of February . The Bulgarian League is a part of the already-established RE Champions League, with competitions under way in Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary and Poland. In Bulgaria, Bansko is a leader through a ten-megawatt wood-chip-burning heating plant that supplies public and private buildings, including hotels and residences.

A city’s ranking will be determined by the following calculation: total RE power divided by the total number of inhabitants. The rankings within the Bulgarian League will be displayed on the Website www.liga-vei.net. The ranks of all participants in Europe will be displayed at www.res-league.eu, and the Bulgarian RE League site can also be reached from this address. In Europe, 6 national RES leagues (Germany, Czech Republic, France, Hungary, Poland and Bulgarian) already exist. Municipalities are compared thanks to a simple indicator: RES installed power (solar / wood) divided by the number of inhabitants. The development of the RES Champions league consists in a standardisation –expansion strategy. First, the existing leagues will be analysed, adapted and networked in order to set up the RES Champions league creating a positive competition between European cities. A common standard will be defined and will apply to every new country joining the RES Champions league afterwards. The best practices of municipalities participating in the RES Champions league will be promoted (either existing good practices or new ones voluntarily submitted by municipalities). The objective is to highlight local authorities (municipality scale), implementing successful
actions in terms of RES development, in order to encourage other municipalities to follow them. Exchange activities at local, national and European levels (respectively with local conferences, technical workshops, study tours) will allow municipalities learning from the cross-experiences, based on collected best practices.To create and increase the fame of the RES Champions league, communication activities fitted for different target groups will continuously be implemented.

Expected results
At the end of the project, at least 6 national RES (solar PV, solar thermal and efficient wood) leagues will run and be included in the RES Champions league. The associated network of municipalities will be constituted of around 6000 municipalities. Front-runner municipalities will be highlighted thanks to awards and documentary films. A popular website will present not only the results of the competition, but also the best practices of municipalities in the field of RES and energy efficiency.