Aggregation - Project Development Assistance
Project Development Assistance (PDA) will be provided to public and private project promoters such as public authorities or their groupings, public/private infrastructure operators and bodies, energy service companies, retail chains, large property owners and services/industry. The action will support building technical, economic and legal expertise needed for project development and leading to the launch of concrete investments, which are the final aim and deliverable of the project.
Proposals should focus on one or more of the following sectors:
- existing public and private buildings including social housing, with the aim to significantly decrease energy consumption in heating/cooling and electricity;
- energy efficiency of industry and service;
- energy efficiency in all modes of urban transport (such as highly efficient transport fleets, efficient freight logistics in urban areas, e-mobility and modal change and shift); and
- energy efficiency in existing infrastructures such as street lighting, district heating/cooling and water/wastewater services.
The proposed investments will have to be launched before the end of the action which means that projects should result in signed contracts for sustainable energy investments to that effect, e.g. construction works, energy performance contracts, turnkey contracts.
Whilst proposals may address investments into distributed, small-scale renewable energy sources in combination with energy efficiency, the main focus should lie on capturing untapped high energy efficiency potentials.
Proposals should include the following features:
- an exemplary/showcase dimension in their ambition to reduce energy consumption and/or in the size of the expected investments;
- deliver organisational innovation in the financial engineering (e.g. on-bill financing schemes, guarantee funds, or factoring funds) and/or in the mobilisation of the investment programme (e.g. bundling, pooling or stakeholder engagement);
- demonstrate a high degree of replicability and include a clear action plan to communicate experiences and results towards potential replicators across the EU;
- build on the experiences from previous PDA projects[[Records of all PDA projects can be found in CORDIS under the topics EE-20-2014/2015 and EE22-2016/2017. All fact sheets can also be retrieved directly from: https://ec.europa.eu/easme/sites/easme-site/files/20160805_mlei_projects-factsheets_final.pdf]].
This PDA facility focuses on small and medium-sized energy investments of at least EUR 7.5 million to EUR 50 million. Large scale investments are covered by the ELENA facility.
The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of between EUR 0.5 and 1.5 million would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.
Investors and lenders need to gain more confidence on investment projects related to energy efficiency which are still seen as risky and fragmented. EU added value can be realised in particular where projects introduce innovation to the market regarding project aggregation and financing solutions minimising transaction costs and engaging the private finance community. EU added value could also be realised where projects demonstrably remove legal, administrative and other market barriers for mainstreaming large scale sustainable energy investment schemes.
Proposals are expected to demonstrate, the impacts listed below, using quantified indicators and targets wherever possible:
- Delivery of a series of sustainable energy investment projects and innovative financing solutions and/or schemes;
- Every million Euro of Horizon 2020 support should trigger investments in sustainable energy worth at least EUR 15 million;
- Primary energy savings, renewable energy production and investments in sustainable energy triggered in the territory of participating parties by the project (respectively in GWh/year and in million Euro of investments);
- Demonstration of innovative and replicable investment financing solutions, documenting feedback/uptake from potential replicators.
Additional positive effects can be quantified and reported when relevant and wherever possible:
- Reduction of the greenhouse gases emissions (in tCO2-eq/year) and/or air pollutants (in kg/year) triggered by the project.