Building scope: both new and refurbished, both public and private; exemptions: in general, the historical parts of cities are exempted from the law; then, the Municipalities should also take into account their specific local landscape needs, historical constraints and environment.

Solar thermal.

No detailed management of the regulation and of its implementation is foreseen in the text of the law, expect for the fact that the Municipalities will be in charge of applying the law and also of checking the completeness of the presented building projects with respect to the rules established.

At the time of issuing the law, the Municipality of Carugate and other small towns in the Province of Milano had already implemented STOs and also the case of Barcelona “Solar Ordinance” was well known in Italy.
However, the main aim of this law was a political one: solar energy is quite well perceived by the final user and, therefore, promoting solar energy is a popular political measure.

No quantifiable objectives are included in this law, since this was the task of the Municipalities.

This STO is fully based on a local initiative, taken by a single politician, Mr. Celori, a representant of the right wing Regional Government. The Municipalities should apply the law details.
The law includes the obligation of solar thermal collectors and water savings measures. Passive solar and insulation measures benefit of a special rebate on the construction costs.

This law was published in November 2004 and the Municipalities had 6 months time to implement it.
So far, only a few Municipalities implemented the law.
No closing is foreseen for this regulation.

No flanking measures are foreseen, expect for what is stated in art. 4: Region Lazio, in collaboration with the Municipalities, should diffuse information about the initiatives undertaken.

The Municipalities are in charge of checking that the applications fulfil the requirements. This check should be done before releasing the building permission.

The cost on the side of Region was quite low, since the text of the law has not required a remarkable investment of cost and time. The situation is now slightly changing, given a new committment by Region Lazio. The cost for the Municipalities could be very high, since they have to develop a management scheme for the application of this law, without having the needed technical skill.

No monitoring of the Municipalities which applied the Law or of the global results was planned by the Region.

At the moment, the results are quite low.
Region Lazio did not make an assessment of the potential impact of this regulation on the Italian market for solar thermal systems.

No effects can be assumed by the issuing of this law.

Only the issuing of the law was widely communicated through newspapers and TVs, but there was a complete lack of communication towards the Municipalities.

After Rome, 3 more Municipalties introduced a STO and 2 more are on the way.

The law was quite weak, so no major barriers have been faced for issuing it. 

The ordinance in the City of Rome (see relative case study).

- Law forced for political purposes
- Lack of communication and pressure
- No sanctioning fees
- No technical support to Municipalities

Municipalities should transpose the law into their building regulations. The enforcement procedures should be organised at regional level.