Romania

For Romania, the existence of the FinEERGO-Dom project represents an opportunity due to the fact that, like other states in the region, during the totalitarian regime, the building were constructed without taking into account energy optimizations and without implementing the useful technologies in this regard. Therefore, there is a stock of multi-family residential buildings, as well as buildings with other destinations, which are eligible for a deep renovation with energy efficiency. It remains to convince the stakeholders of this in order to succeed in implementing as many energy efficiency projects as possible, for the benefit of the local communities, as well as of the humanity.

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Slovakia

There is a great potential in Slovakia for the implementation of energy efficiency projects in the public and private sectors. The biggest opportunities are mainly buildings, but also areas such as lighting, production and distribution of heat and cold. A large number of buildings has been partly modernized with the help of grant support from EU funds, state support programs, or dedicated funds and support tools some banks.

Slovakia is the first country in the European Union to have legislation prepared under the Eurostat rules, which allows to start preparing new guaranteed energy service (GES / EPC) projects without impacting public debt. EPC contract template for public sector came into force from 1. February 2019. The goal is that this template will ensure that public sector entities are in a position to comply with the requirements of the guaranteed energy service contract as set out in the user guide drawn up by the European Investment Bank and Eurostat and thus that the obligations under this contract should not have an impact on the amount of the debt of the public sector in a uniform methodology valid for the European Union (up to now, investment in energy efficient technologies implemented by EPC has been part of the public debt, which has hindered municipalities, towns and state organizations from their realization). Also, public entities (i.e. municipalities) with limited own capacities won’t have to prepare the full contract in line with Eurostat rules individually, they should only use model contract and adjust relevant parts according to their specific conditions.

FinEERGO-Dom project represents an opportunity due to the fact that the main legislative instrument in the field of energy efficiency, the Energy Efficiency Directive 2012/27/EU, sets out the objective of renovating public buildings within the meaning of Article 5 of the Directive, with a particular focus on government buildings, where is stated that each Member State shall ensure that 3 % of buildings with a total floor area over 250 m 2, owned and used by central government, are renovated annually to achieve at least the minimum energy performance requirements. Slovakia has set a target of 52.17 GWh of annual savings in the public buildings sector. The total floor area of the central government buildings is 4 370 709 m 2. Similarly, the Energy Efficiency Directive 2012/27/EU sets out the objective of the energy savings target for the final consumer within the meaning of Article 7 of the Directive, that each Member State must ensure that annual energy savings of 1.5 % on energy sales by energy distributors or suppliers are achieved. The Slovak Republic set a target of 948.75 GWh of annual savings for the final consumer.

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Austria

Energy contracting has a long tradition in Austria. In 2005, the renowned Austrian contracting providers formed the umbrella organization DECA “Dachverband Energie-Contracting Austria”. At the end of 2012, the corporate platform was also formed as a separate legal entity (association) under the new name “Dienstleister Energieeffizienz und Contracting Austria” (Service Provider Energy Efficiency and Contracting Austria) – this addresses all companies offering high-quality services for increasing energy efficiency and the increased use of renewable energy in Austria.

In Austria there are several initiatives to establish quality criteria on the market:

• Since 2003, the Austrian Eco-label for Energy Contracting has been in force.

• In 2013 the DECA (Service Provider Energy Efficiency and Contracting Austria) was founded with the aim of quality assurance on the Austrian energy service market.

• The Graz Energy Agency has developed the “Thermoprofit” brand, which it offers together with its business partners in the Austrian provinces.

Contracting providers mostly come from the fields of building technology and automation, control and regulation technology, energy supply and civil engineering offices. They have to have the necessary planning, energy technology and interdisciplinary know-how to act as a general contractor and ensure comprehensive energy (and, if necessary, structural) refurbishment of the building to a high standard of quality. The most common measures that have been carried out are replacement of boilers and optimisation of heating control systems, energy-efficient lighting, optimization of ventilation and cooling, heat recovery, optimization of room temperature, tariff optimisation, thermal insulation of facades, top and bottom storey ceilings and use of renewable energies (e.g. solar power or solar heat).

Many public buildings, such as schools and kindergartens have been optimised and renovated through energy contracting. While many public buildings have been renovated through energy contracting, the number of renovated residential buildings is low. Most of the renovated buildings are social buildings, which have the provinces as owners. In the private sector the situation is different because of the ownership structure. In these cases the renovation is generally done if there is enough budget to carry out the renovation.

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