Up-scaling investments in energy efficiency and renewable energies for buildings is a major challenge to meet 2030 EU targets. National, regional and local administrations have to innovate in the application of public funds in order to rise the leverage of investment that ESIF, and other public funds, can generate in the energy market.
Unfortunately, most of ESIF and public incentives are currently used with non-returnable grant systems. Non-returnable grant policies are showing important weakness compared to other schemes, such as more complex Financial Instruments (FIs), so regional authorities have a key role to play in moving to other support policies which are proving more cost-effective.
Extremadura region is coordinating 2 EU initiatives for the promotion of FIs for energy renovation of multifamily houses, covering 14 EU regions, which will develop pilot FIs supported by ESIF. This initiative, called FINERPOL, is funded by Interreg Europe Programme with 1,9M€ ERDF.
The use of ESIF, especially ERDF, in the generation of new FIs for energy efficiency in buildings is a main challenge for the current period 2014-2020. Especially when Regions try to combine these FIs with other EC funding initiatives, such as EFSI, and wants to leverage the public investment through public-private partnerships, by including private financial institutions in the mix.
Finerpol aims to launch a pilot FI in Extremadura in 2017, for multifamily houses with central heating, which have been identified in the ex-ante assessment as a locked investment with a market potential higher than 70M€.
Contact details:
Javier Ordonez Munoz, Head of Economic and International Area Extremadura Energy Agency (Agenex), Spain
Email: jordonez@agenex.org
Tel: +34 924 262 161
Project: www.interregeurope.eu/finerpol