Innovative financing schemes
Innovative financing schemes
Many front-running municipalities and regions dedicate their human resources to financial engineering and creation of innovative financing schemes that help them keeping money spent on energy near home.
Among them emerge Energy Performance Contracting, revolving funds,
soft loans and grants for citizens, guarantee funds, local public
companies or public ESCOs, public-private companies (third party
financing), local saving accounts, citizens’ cooperatives, crowdfunding
and more.
Energy Cities identified 9 innovative financing schemes
aiming at increasing energy efficiency and renewable energy use in
public and private buildings. These mechanisms were developed by local,
regional and national authorities such as the cities of Almada, Delft,
and Amsterdam, the Brussels Capital Region, KredEx (Estonia), and more.
The study "Financing schemes increasing energy efficiency and renewable energy use in public and private buildings" was developed in the framework of the Infinite Solutions project and can be downloaded here. More case studies are under development.
Innovative financing schemes & business models developed thanks to the EU project development assistance programmes
Since 2009, different European Project Development Assistance
Programmes (ELENA-EIB, ELENA-KfW, Horizon 2020, European Energy
Efficiency Fund, etc.) have already supported more than 70 beneficiaries
- mainly cities and regions - in the development of large investment
programmes (in average EUR100 M ).
The beneficiaries have been testing innovative financing schemes, organisational, governance and partnership structures.
We recommend cities to check these innovative financing schemes for inspiration:
In June 2015, Energy Cities reviewed 5 projects undertaken by our
member cities - Paris, Malmö (in association with Lund and Helsingborg),
Barcelona, Bristol and Brussels-Capital - and supported by the ELENA-EIB facility.
These projects also put in place innovative financing mechanisms,
covering a wide array of sectors - from public building refurbishment to
public transport or renewable energy production. If you want to know
more, you can download the study "Unlocking investments in cities: ELENA-EIB technical assistance facility" here.
Over 500 cities’ actions in Energy Cities’ best-practice database!
Energy Cities’ fully-revamped best-practice database will allow you to discover more than 500 cities’ energy transition actions. Amongst these best practices, over 50 inspirational case studies explain how the cities financed their actions
thanks to the European funds, EU technical assistance programmes (e.g.
ELENA-EIB) and innovative financing schemes. Go take a tour around the
Europe of local energy transition! ;-)
New case studies are regularly added here. If you want to share yours, please contact our Information Manager Blandine Pidoux.
