ICP Europe: Unlocking capital for energy efficiency projects

The Investor Confidence Project was brought to Europe to develop a system to give confidence to all active stakeholders. There are still concerns that investing in energy efficiency is risky. ICP Europe is designed to change that. Starting with investments in buildings, ICP Europe is now broadening the scope to include industry (large and small), district energy and street lighting.

Understanding the overall concept

The concept of the Investor Confidence Project is relatively simple to understand. A potential project in a factory or a district energy system, for example, is identified. Someone has to do the necessary calculations to determine the viability. Someone has to be identified to install it (often the same organisation). And some organisation needs to fund it. What this project does is standardise the procedures so that all players gain confidence in the system. The factory owner is happy. The developer/auditor/installer is happy. The financial institution is happy. There are protocols in place and third party monitoring to ensure everything is done correctly. The protocols are developed by interested experts and not by commercial interests.

This approach, first brought out in the United States, was used for buildings, mainly multi-family and commercial buildings.  This approach was then brought to Europe for buildings, funded through the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 programme. The final stages of the first phase on buildings are now being completed.

The Commission is now supporting a further evolution of the concept into industry, street lighting and district energy. This two-year project is just starting.  It benefits from lessons learned in the buildings component because much of the methodology is similar.   There are many elements in the process, but what is key now is the development of protocols that are used to establish a relationship between the client and the project developer (an ESCO, for example).

The protocol is quite technical but relates to the process, obviously with a good understanding of the technologies. This is why ICP Europe is looking for experts to help develop new protocols for industry, district energy and street lighting.

Each defined protocol creates a standard set of documentation that will help standardise project performance underwriting, leading to better data on performance, and a more efficient marketplace with less duplicative engineering and lower transaction costs.  The result should be an increase in deal flow and a more transparent and efficient market.

Joining the Technical Forum

The Forum will ensure that ICP Europe staff is producing relevant and needed products and services for the European renovation markets. The Forum shall do this through:

1. Providing insight and feedback on draft products in webinar based Forum meetings and informally;
2. Providing local, national and European knowledge on relevant standards, best practices and initiatives that may be relevant to, or interact with, ICP Europe products and tools and
3. Identifying projects and programmes for piloting of ICP Europe products and services.

For further information, please go to the project website here: http://europe.eeperformance.org/technical-forum.html.

Source: EEIP