Build Up is a European portal for energy efficiency in buildings. It provides public authorities staff with access to many resources on legislation, toolkits and guidelines produced by other cities, regions or countries, and a way to share expertise with their peers. It also links the building sector with the European Institutions by updating information on the legislative framework. The website allows all stakeholders to upload content.
Links
European initiatives
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The Concerted Action Energy Efficiency Directive is a forum for exchange of experiences and collaboration supporting effective implementation of the Directive on Energy Efficiency in all EU Member States and Norway. It provides a collection of factsheets and good practices examples, which are searchable by theme.
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Covenant of Mayors is a movement involving local and regional authorities, voluntarily committing to increasing energy efficiency and use of renewable energy sources on their territories. By their commitment, Covenant signatories aim to meet and exceed the European Union 20% CO2 reduction objective by 2020. Covenant's website offers a database of sustainable energy action plans uploaded by local authorities from around Europe, monitoring action plans, toolkits, webinars, as well as technological and methodological materials.
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European Commission’s Energy Union page provides information on this EU priority, including relevant documents, factsheets, infographics, communications, etc.
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ManagEnergy provides technical support to actors in the public sectors, in the field of energy efficiency and renewable energies, at the local and regional level. ManagEnergy does this through workshops, networking events, gathering case studies and best practice examples and online tool facilitating search of partners.
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Mayors Adapt is an initiative that promotes creating and implementing climate adaptation plans as a part of urban planning. It provides technical assistance to support application of adaptation plans, guidance materials and tools, good practices examples and city profile facts sheets.
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Reference Framework for Sustainable Cities is an online toolkit designed to help cities to promote and boost their work on integrated sustainable urban development. It is available free of charge to all European local authorities and offers practical support in integrating sustainability principles into local policies and actions. Through the website, local authorities can share their experiences, as well as search in a catalogue and download good practices examples. RFSC also offers several evaluation tools to monitor strategy development, to check integrate approach and to assess progress.
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Renovate Europe is an EU-wide campaign that focusses exclusively on ambitious renovation of the building stock in the EU. It aims to be "the voice that bangs the drum for energy efficient renovations", taking a technology neutral, integrated and holistic approach to retrofitting.
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Resource Efficient Buildings Study is a project lead by DG ENV and DG GROW and is being carried out by the Commission's Joint Research Centre. The study aims to develop a common EU framework of indicators to assess the environmental performance of buildings. It will be open source, which means that it could be used by building professionals and their clients to prioritise their focus for making environmental improvements, and indirectly by assessment and certification schemes.
European organizations and associations
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eu.ESCO - the European Association of Energy Service Companies aims to boost the energy services market by increasing its transparency and recognition as one of the key tools for energy efficiency in buildings from public authorities. The association represents Energy Service Companies offering Energy Performance Contracting vis‐à‐vis European Institutions, other relevant European Stakeholders, Member States and public authorities. eu.ESC’s website gathers EPC success stories, position papers and other publications.
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EURACE is an association that works together with the European institutions on more efficient use of energy in buildings. EuroACE’s website offers several substantial research documents, reports, press releases, position papers, events, and other publications on energy efficiency in buildings.
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European Council for an Energy Efficient Economy is a membership-based non-profit association dedicated to energy efficiency. ECEEE generates knowledge and analysis of policies, and facilitates co-operation and networking.
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FEDARENE - European Federation of Agencies and Regions for Energy and the Environment aims to make the voice of the regions heard in the debate on energy and environment policies at the European level. Locally, the agencies raise public awareness through a diversity of actions, such as exhibitions, conferences, documentation services and meetings with local schools and professional bodies. They serve equally local elected officials and the public by helping and advising them. FEDARENE’s website provides a library of publications, collection of good practices, and searchable lists of projects and events.
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EFIEES’es purpose is to promote activities of Energy Efficiency Services Companies (EESCs) in the European Union. EESCs designs and implements practical measures to improve the energy efficiency of their customers by long-term contracts. Their objective is to optimise the energy management of end-users. EFIEES'es website offers a list of publications on energy efficiency and EPC.
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Greenovate Europe is an independent expert group dedicated to the development of sustainable business. It offers a pool of more than 500 experienced advisers and more than 2,000 technical experts with industry and technical know-how, who are able to implement innovative processes along the entire value chain – from research to market. Greenovate! Europe provides innovation support services at EU level to research laboratories, technology developers, companies willing to acquire or spin-out new technologies, and investors.
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The Coalition for Energy Savings is an international NGO representing European business, professional, local authorities, trade unions and civil society organisations. The coalition plays a role of a centre of expertise and a forum of knowledge exchange on energy efficiency. Among others, it offers a guidebook to navigate the EU Energy Efficiency Directive.
Current and past projects
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A2PBEER is a four year research project which will develop a cost effective, energy efficient retrofitting methodology which aims to reduce energy used by public buildings. The project is developing a new approach to renovating public buildings by using a mix of established building solutions and advanced, innovative technologies. The website of the project offers information on retrofitting strategies, technologies used in buildings renovations and an e-learning module.
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ChangeBest project run between 2009 – 2012. It supported energy companies, ESCOs and other interested market actors in developing and introducing new EES for private households and business clients. The support was based on thorough country analyses, experience exchange, general strategy concepts and bilateral dialogues with individual companies on their business plans and product developments. The "Results" section of the website provides vast spectrum of resources, including good practice and successful stories examples, case studies, guides and recommendations.
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CrowdFundRES aims to gain a deep understanding of the main market actors' and the public's perceptions of crowdfunding for renewable energy projects. In order to do so, the European project carries out a survey addressed to a vast audience. In the future, CrowdFundRES will also analyse the challenges related to crowdfunding for renewable energy, develop guidelines and review them based on a practical experience, as well as improve the market and regulatory framework.
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The objective of the project is to increase the market uptake of technologies for the improvement of energy efficiency in public buildings, and encouraging private sector participation in innovative financing schemes for energy efficiency investments. EnPC-INTRANS aims to develop local capacities of the public sector at the level of municipalities to set-up and use EnPC models for the financing of their investments in EE improvements of public municipalities and services.
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Global Fund for Cities Development (FMDV) was initiated in 2010 by Metropolis and UCLG in order to become the international organization that gathers local authorities and their networks on the economic and funding solutions for a sustainable urban development. Acting as an operational instrument, FMDV supports local authorities in accessing the necessary financial resource, in the best conditions, to finance their urban development strategies through technical expertise and financial engineering on their projects. It also supports the design and development of project strategies and financial vehicles that give programmes or local governments access to long-term financing.
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Infinite solutions is a peer couching project that aims to develop the expertise of local staff and to replicate two innovative financing schemes tested earlier by the cities of Stuttgart (DE) and Delft (NL). Infinite solutions’ website offers descriptions of the tested financing schemes, collection of training materials and a list of EU funding opportunities for local sustainable energy 2014-2020.
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Investor Confidence Project Europe aims to enable a market for Investor Ready Energy Efficiency™ projects by reducing transaction costs and engineering overhead for building renovation projects, while increasing the reliability and consistency of savings. ICP Europe connects project developers with a wide range of project investors. This expanding sector includes both equity and debt finance companies, building owners and managers, energy service providers, insurers, engineers, utilities, and a range of NGO and public sector organizations.
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Mobilizing European Citizens for Sustainable Energy (RESCOOP MECISE) – is a new Horizon 2020 project. The project aims to link renewable energy projects to energy efficiency investments by supporting collaborations between REScoops and local municipalities. RESCOOP MECISE will provide citizens and local authorities with personal assistance and technical expertise on deep energy renovation projects. The project will set up a European fund for both renewable energy and energy efficiency projects and develop a financial facilitation service for REScoops.
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MountEE supported a transformation in the building sector in European mountain municipalities. The project aimed at facilitating knowledge exchange and promoting sustainable, energy efficient constructions and renovations. MountEE website showcases pilot buildings, good practices and a short section on financing instruments.
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The research project ZenN aims to reduce energy use in existing buildings and neighbourhoods. The project strives to: demonstrate the feasibility of innovative low energy renovation processes for buildings at the neighbourhood scale; identify, optimise and disseminate the most promising management and funding methods to facilitate large-scale implementation; develop, improve and launch ambitious replication plans at several scales (local, regional etc.) The three main challenges in connection with the near-zero renovation of existing buildings faced by the ZenN project are: technical challenges, financial challenges and property structure challenges.
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The REVALUE project aims to develop a set of norms, standards and policies for the valuation of property that recognises energy efficiency in residential buildings and create a framework that aligns property valuation techniques used by lenders (banks and other institutional investors), property owners (housing associations and private commercial landlords), and assessors (valuing bodies, organisations that measure energy performance) in valuing energy efficiency in buildings.
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is an EU funded project under the Horizon 2020 programme that aims to develop a new type of energy strategy through visions and roadmaps for the 8 partner cities, in co-creation with relevant local stakeholders. The project focuses on three areas within the domain of sustainable energy that are closely linked to the municipalities main responsibilities:
- Smart buildings
- Smart mobility
- Smart urban spaces
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Smart Cities Information System is a continuation of the CONCERTO series of projects that started back in 2005. SCIS aims to bring together like-minded interests and individuals to encourage knowledge sharing and greater collaboration in the goal of enhancing energy efficiency and energy security, reducing CO2 emissions, and increasing the share of renewable energy.To reflect the growing importance of innovation in urban planning initiatives, the new SCIS also focuses on the energy dimension of ICT and transport that already includes city buildings, building clusters and city districts.
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Streetlight-EPC creates demand and supply for EPC projects in 9 regions by setting up regional EPC facilitation services. The project is based on the idea that street lighting projects can be a good “learning and testing ground” for EPC due to its lower technical and economic complexity (compared to building-related EPC). In the project outputs section on the website, one can find tools such as quick checks, guides and FAQs on streetlight EPC.
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Transparense aims to increase the transparency and trustworthiness of Energy Performance Contracting (EPC) markets, transfers the know-how and supports EPC markets across Europe. The European Code of Conduct for EPC launched by Transparense in 2014 defines the basic values and principles that are fundamental for the successful preparation and implementation of EPC projects. The Transparense website offers training modules, manuals for beginner markets, examples of pilot projects, online databases of existing ESCOs and ESCO associations, EPC model, and European and country-level policy initiatives.
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UMBRELLA is a three year EU funded research project that aims to engage a range of stakeholders in identification of suitable energy efficient business models, and equipping them with the necessary tools to create new high performance buildings and retrofit existing buildings. Umbrella targets building owners, building occupants, management companies, public authorities etc. The project will develop an online web portal which will allow users to explore and optimise different business models.
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ZEBRA2020 project focuses on tracking the market transition to nearly Zero-Energy Buildings (nZEBs) and develops recommendations and strategies for the building industry and policy makers and to accelerate the market uptake of nZEBs. The project will offer on-line tools, such as ZEBRA2020 data tool and nZEB tracker. ZEBRA2020 data tool presents an overview of the current building stock including renovation and construction and monitors Energy Performance Certificates (EPC) activities by country. nZEB tracker will measure the maturity of the nZEB market.
Financiers
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The ELENA facility (European Local ENergy Assistance) is run by the European Investment Bank (EIB) and covers up to 90% of the technical support cost needed to prepare, implement and finance an investment programme. This could include feasibility and market studies, programme structuring, energy audits and tendering procedure preparation. With solid business and technical plans in place, ELENA will also help attract funding from private banks and other sources, including the EIB.
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European Energy Efficiency Fund –is managed by Deutsche Bank and it invests directly into projects. EEEF provides market-based financing for commercially viable public energy efficiency, renewable energy and clean urban transport projects. Beneficiaries of the Fund are municipal, local and regional authorities as well as public and private entities acting on behalf of those authorities, such as local energy utilities, Energy Service Companies (ESCOs), district heating combined heat and power (CHP) companies or public transport providers.
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Private Finance for Energy Efficiency (PF4EE) instrument is a joint agreement between the EIB and the European Commission which aims to address the limited access to adequate and affordable commercial financing for energy efficiency investments. The instrument targets projects which support the implementation of National Energy Efficiency Action Plans or other energy efficiency programmes of EU Member States.
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SUSI Partners AG is a Swiss Investment Advisor that focuses on financing the energy transition and sustainable energy infrastructure. SUSI supports institutional investors with investments in solar and wind parks in Europe, energy efficiency retrofits of existing infrastructure and energy storage solutions. Through the SUSI Energy Efficiency Fund (SEEF), SUSI offers (re-) financing of existing individual projects or entire project portfolios in the energy efficiency market which produce a measurable impact on climate change mitigation.
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The UK Green Investment Bank is the first bank of its type in the world. It was created by the UK Government, which is the sole Shareholder, and capitalised with an initial £3.8bn of public funds. The UK Green Investment Bank use this finance to back green projects on commercial terms and mobilise other private sector capital into the UK’s green economy.
Tools
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The CSI Europe Network has created a Financial Instruments Toolkit, which provides an introduction to financial instruments to support urban development and highlights key issues for successful implementation.
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is an open source database of 7,800 energy efficiency investment projects (including 5,094 buildings’ projects), disclosing market data to increase transparency, facilitate performance monitoring and benchmarking, and highlight the economic rationale for more energy efficiency investments in Europe. DEEP provides factsheets and case studies of financial institutions deploying capital into energy efficiency and welcomes data contributions.
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Improve your know-how on Energy Performance Contracting by accessing the various training materials, handbooks, tools, model contracts or tender documents developed under the Intelligent Energy Europe Programme and other initiatives. The documents are available in all EU languages.
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Fi compass is a platform for advisory services on financial instruments under the European Structural and Investment funds (ESIF) and microfinance under the Programme for Employment and Social Innovation (EaSI). fi-compass is provided by the European Commission in partnership with the European Investment Bank. fi-compass is designed to support ESIF managing authorities, EaSI microfinance providers and other interested parties, by providing practical know-how and learning tools on financial instruments. These will include “how-to” manuals, factsheets for quick reference, e-learning modules, face-to-face training seminars and networking events. The fi-compass website will progressively become the knowledge hub for ESIF Financial Instruments.
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Financing schemes increasing energy efficiency and renewable energy use in public and private buildings by Infinite Solutions features 9 existing local and regional financing schemes aiming at increasing energy efficiency and renewable energy use in public and private buildings. The website also offers detailed descriptions of several examples developed by various European cities.
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ICP Protocols are an industry best practice assembly of existing standards, practices, and documentation in order to create the data necessary to enable underwriting or managing of energy performance risk. ICP system standardizes how energy efficiency projects are developed, maintained and measured, thus promises mass-scale financing for the building renovation market.
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ZEBRA2020 data tool presents an overview of the current building stock including renovation and construction and monitors Energy Performance Certificates (EPC) activities by country.
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