What's new at CITYnvest - October 2016

On 27th of September, representatives of local authorities, ESCOs, non-government organisations and policy makers gathered in Nantes to discuss the potential of innovative financing models for building renovations in France.

French local authorities face strong budget constraints and reduction of national financial support. That has an impact on their ability to invest and carry out projects tackling climate issues, however the innovative approaches to financing energy efficiency have been already developed and tested in several regions.

The panellists agreed that the role of the public sector in developing investments in renovations of buildings is crucial. That kind of projects would not be possible to realize on a purely private market. However, the experts stressed that interesting and well prepared projects will always find investors to support them. Thus, strong political leadership and cooperation with private sector are indispensable. ‘We need to work with local authorities to get the bankability mentality’, Elise Steyaert, the coordinator of CITYnvest said.

Yet, involving financing institutions and ESCOs to invest in energy efficiency projects is not the only possible way to make the renovations happen. The participants of the event were more than eager to learn more about cooperatives and to explore citizen-funding solutions.

Presentations from the workshop are available on the workshop page. The video explaining the example of RenoWatt, which was broadcasted during the event can be watched here.

The region of Liège and its local authorities have already been committed to improving energy efficiency in public buildings. Prior to the launch of CITYnvest, 8 municipalities, the Province of Liège and the regional airport had signed an agreement to cooperate on retrofitting of buildings. A concept of an energetic one-stop-shop has been developed, and it lead to establishment of a dedicated team and a new entity – RenoWatt, which facilitates scaling up energy efficiency renovation projects in the region.

In a short video prepared for the French focus country workshop, Erika Honnay presents RenoWatt. She explains what financing instruments where used to renovate buildings in the Province of Liège and why those financing models were chosen, what are the key success factors and problems encountered, as well as prospects for replication of the one-stop-shop model in other countries and in France in particular.

Recently, we had a pleasure to publish a guest blog post at the Smart Cities Information System platform. In our post we explain what the origins of the project are and how we would like to make a change in thinking about innovative financing models. You can read the full post on the Smart Cities Information System blog.

CITYnvest is a Horizon2020 project focusing on supporting and replicating successful innovative financing models for energy efficiency renovations in buildings. Sounds complex? Watch here the people who stand behind CITYnvest explain how local authorities can benefit from their work.

Miguel Casas from Energinvest presented the review of local authority innovative large scale retrofit financing and operational models in the webinar ‘Increasing Capacities in Cities for Innovating Financing in Energy Efficiency’. The event was organised by he EIP-SCC Business Models, Finance and Procurement Action Cluster. [download presentation]

Elise Steyaert from Climate Alliance reacted to presentations of two smart city projects: CELSIUS CITY and EU-GUGLE, which focused on balancing the financial models for retrofitting buildings and district heating/cooling projects.

The Annual Meeting of Association of Bulgarian energy agencies took place on 25 June 2016 in the town of Hissar, Bulgaria.The CITYnvest project was presented by Ivanka Pandelieva who highlighted the Pilot Region Rhodope's Action Plan main points, the achieved results and forthcoming activities related to the set up of a one-stop-shop for energy efficiency. The energy agencies were interested in the current status and perspectives of the CITYnvest activities and the possibility to replicate the results of the project. They also committes to inform the local authorities in their respective regions about the CITYnvest.

The meeting was attended by representatives of the Association of Bulgarian Energy Agencies, the Bulgarian State Agency for Sustainable Energy Development (SEEA) as well as local energy agencies of Sofia (SOFENA), Plovdiv (Plovdiv Energy Agency), Pazardzhik, The Black Sea Research Energy Centre, Association of Rhodope Municipalities (ARM).

The  Action Plan aims to:

• present the current situation in Rhodope Region regarding sustainable energy potential focusing on building retrofitting/RES incorporation and street lighting;
• present available financing models of relevance to local sustainable energy actions in Rhodope Region;
• tailor the Liege approach (RenoWatt experience to create a one-stop-shop) to Rhodope Region and to ensure it fits with Rhodope constraints and reality;
• outline the necessary steps to be taken in order to put in place the infrastructure that will help Rhodope municipalities in securing funding, while taking into account organizational, administrative, legal and financial aspects.

Download the Action Plan for Rhodope Region.

Recording and presentations from the Covenant of Mayors webinar ‘Why and how to set up Urban Development Funds?’ that took place on 21 June 2016 are available on-line. More information on our website.

Covenant of Mayors free training on financing: open call for expression of interest

The Covenant of Mayors is organising a two-day training on financing sustainable local development projects. The training is open to representatives of cities signatory to the Covenant of Mayors initiative and currently working on a development project. The deadline to register your interest in attending this free training is 17 October. More information on our website.