Innovative financial schemes for buildings’ energy renovation

Abstract

Building energy renovation is a key issue to tackle the high energy consumption of the building stock. Many countries - especially the Mediterranean ones - have been strongly hit by the financial crisis of 2008 which has affected national economies and resulted in market uncertainty. On one hand, the financial resources are very limited and on the other hand, the energy efficiency policy of the European Union (EPBD recast and Energy Efficiency Directive) has become stricter with more ambitious goals in terms of energy efficiency and CO2 emissions, especially of the public building stock. Public authorities are not ready to implement them. Administrative and regulatory obstacles help to maintain an unsuitable environment for this kind of initiatives. The majority of public buildings can significantly improve their energy performance, but to mobilize these investments new financial instruments are necessary (such as Energy Performance Contracting-EPC) that will be negotiated with new market actors (Energy Services Companies-ESCOs).The current work tries to facilitate the decision to implement energy renovation measures in public buildings by the use of a tool. The Subsidy Evaluation Tool (SET) carries out an energy and financial evaluation of Energy Conservation Measures (ECMs) for buildings energy renovation and can be used for various types of public buildings. The main aim of the tool is to find innovative financing schemes that combine public resources with private investments and to create conditions for deep investments in energy efficiency actions for public buildings considered bankable by the market. The paper presents the structure of the tool, its layout, the parameters and formulas utilized, so as to provide with the most appropriate solution for energy retrofitting of buildings from a techno-economic point of view.