Poland

The Polish ESCO market is recently developing significantly in Poland but still there is not many companies acting as ESCO as well as there is not much interest among the potential clients. There is need to involve different raising-awareness institutions in activities supporting the market. ESCO companies are active in various sectors, performing activities for various types of clients.

Some ESCOs offer a wide range of services, while other specialise in one segment (e.g. street lighting). ESCOs provide services for the public sector, the commercial sector, the energy sector, industry, small and medium enterprises (SME) or even households. Considering their volume, the latter offer a significant potential for energy savings connected with use of household appliances and lighting.

Multifamily buildings can be divided according to their management and ownership structures into several sectors: housing cooperatives, housing communities, council buildings, private buildings, social housing associations. Each type of buildings has its own management (decision making) structure and needs. The sector of residential buildings does not have almost any access to EU subsidies, therefore, its interest in the third party financing is increasing. Subsidies under the thermal modernisation and renovation premiums constitute a competition for ESCOs.

The main investment types include: modernisation of central heating and domestic hot water installations, construction of new domestic hot water installations that replace bathroom water heaters, modernisation of heat transfer stations, modernisation and replacement of heat sources. Such investments are the most common in housing cooperatives and housing communities. They are rather rare in council buildings. Social housing associations constitute a new management form and their buildings are also rather new.

There are, however, some projects in replacement of heat sources for fuel oil, as they have high operational costs. Buildings of social housing associations are low-cost structures, often characterised by savings at the investment stage.[1]

[1] ESCO market in Poland – current state and development perspectives” Institute of Environmental Economics

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Latvia

Approximately 70% of the Latvian population lives in housing blocks built in the Soviet period until the Year 1992. Average lifespan of these buildings is coming to an end and technical conditions of multifamily buildings are rapidly deteriorating because of the lack of proper maintenance. In many occasions it happens due to the apartment residents’ lack of awareness about property management and financing opportunities for larger construction works of the apartment building.

In Latvia, 18 projects of the deep renovation of multifamily buildings have been finished. All projects included energy efficiency guarantees, 16 of renovation projects has been performed by RenEsco Ltd. and two by the municipality “Salaspils siltums” Ltd.

The “LATVIAN BALTIC ENERGY EFFICIENCY FACILITY” or LABEEF was created by investment control enterprise Funding for Future B.V. (F3). It is a fund which aims to facilitate long-term investments necessary for multifamily building and public building renovation projects. In 2018, LABEEF financed the first six multifamily building deep renovation projects in Cesis, Sigulda, and Riga. In 2019 new projects are planned.

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Bulgaria

There are strong positive forces, starting to create momentum on the Bulgarian energy efficiency market, shaping a promising trend and outlining opportunities that the advanced market players in the ecosystem are taking steps to seize and build on, structuring sophisticated teams and innovative business models. Still, there is a great appetite for grant resources on the client side, both public and private, resulting in passivity even in cases when the cost of waiting for “free” money is greater than a potential ESCO contract.

Recent changes in the Energy Efficiency Act oblige local energy traders to realize energy savings that should amount cumulatively by the end of 2020 to 2 772 GWh. The scheme will be prolonged till 2030 and talks are on the table for even further extension, which guarantees a multibillion market for energy efficiency in Bulgaria. Additionally, the same Act sets obligations on the client side, bringing tens of millions sq. meters to the market for realization of energy efficiency measures. For example, public buildings stock is nearly 20 million sq. meters and has to improve every year in terms of energy efficiency parameters.

Another strong market force follows the Government policy to provide 100% financial support for renovation of the multifamily buildings stock, which is estimated to be 117 million sq. meters. In such constellation, having in mind that the main competitor to market instruments is gradually disappearing (grants), it’s the ESCO that will have the best chance to become the main enabler for realization of energy efficiency policy and for fulfilling the national energy savings obligations.

In that respect, the Sustainable Energy Development Agency (SEDA) is very active by organizing campaigns throughout the country for popularization of ESCO business models, benefits of energy management and best practices. Recently, ESCO contract examples to be used by the ecosystem have been developed by SEDA, as well as a marketplace for projects is on the way in partnership with the Alliance for Energy Efficiency (organization of ESCO companies).

A very positive new development is the open data policy by SEDA, allowing for identification and allocation of investment ready energy saving possibilities owing to the Enerfund project. At this stage over 5 000 energy audits are registered, prescribing investments of nearly 800 million euro.

On the flip side, a lot remains to be done in terms of communication, training and persuasion so that clients build enough confidence in advanced market-based instruments for energy efficiency realization and convince themselves that grants won’t come back. To add to the list, there are ambiguities due to over-regulation and misunderstanding in the public sector which makes the ESCO contracts vulnerable to obstructions.

Lastly, the access to capital for energy efficiency is still comparable with that of “standard financing” which sets a lower priority to these kind of projects in the clients’ and ESCO companies’ agendas. Thankfully, Fund Manager of Financial Instruments in Bulgaria (FMFIB) has started to provide guarantees, but the scale and parameters are still falling behind the challenges in the sector.

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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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