Driving investment in energy efficiency through energy savings insurance in europe 2.0
The Energy Savings Insurance (ESI) Europe 2.0 project aims to: (i) replicate the successful innovative financing scheme ESI (currently being implemented in Italy, Portugal and Spain with the ESI Europe funded by the EU’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme) in three high potential countries in Europe – Croatia, Greece & Slovakia; (ii) hold capacity building, and marketing and promotion activities targeting key market stakeholders to help them understand the model and facilitate access to EE finance; & (iii) to create tools to promote & enable the further replication of ESI across Europe.

The ESI model consists of financial & non-financial mechanisms designed to work together to improve the risk-return profile of EE investments & overcome the associated barriers to stimulate the demand for EE projects. It consists of: (i) a standardised contract, which clearly establishes the setup to guarantee energy savings to the SME; (ii) a performance insurance that is used to compensate the SME in case the EE project does not reach the expected energy savings; & (iii) validation mechanisms that provides an independent assessment & verification of the project. These three mechanisms work together to create trust & credibility between actors, & convince SMEs to invest in EE. The model is supported by communications, dissemination & outreach activities, as well as capacity building & EE investment roundtables targeting key market stakeholders, including technology providers with EE solutions, financial institutions, SMEs & others, to create dialogue between the relevant stakeholders & facilitate access to EE finance. The ESI model presents a proven & unique, market based approach that makes use of distribution channels & products that are already available on the market. The ESI mechanisms is complementary to other schemes & available funding, such as green credit lines, credit guarantees, or energy audits.