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Financing Energy Saving Solutions for SMEs

Objective

The EU wishes to improve energy efficiency (EE) by 20% in 2020. SMEs represent 40% of EUs economy, but they invest too little in EE, because it’s not their core business and they lack suitable financing options. 70% of SMEs indicate that they would consider investing if finance was available.
It is Volgroen's ambition to become SMEs largest provider of financed Energy Efficiency measures. Through partners (equipment providers, contractors, EE consultants) Volgroen offers finance to SME customers who can now directly benefit from energy savings without hassle and without having to make direct investments. By aggregating small-scale EE investments through its scalable partner network, Volgroen enables financial markets to invest in these small scale energy saving measures.
Volgroen intends to perform a quick scan in 15 different EU countries and seek detailed market information on three questions: What are legislative aspects, what are financing and refinancing possibilities and what are the market aspects for each country. The results from the quick scan will be validated in detail for 3 to 4 countries. A business plan ‘Volgroen European expansion’ is elaborated with focus on the 3 to 4 scanned and validated countries.
Volgroen has innovative web-based back-office processes, procedures, systems and databases, allowing them to offer financing starting at €2.000 to SMEs for EE investments. SMEs start paying less for their energy on day 1. On average they save €4 for each invested Euro. Their partners may use Volgroen’s infrastructure to change from selling technology to providing energy savings. This paradigm shift has proven increased sales of EE measures by the partners in the Netherlands, Volgroen’s home market and through pilots in Germany and Belgium. Now Volgroen wishes to expand their scalable and replicable business model for small scale energy saving measures for SMEs to other countries and create a €500 million fund by 2020.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) H2020-SMEInst-2014-2015

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Coordinator

VOLGROEN BV
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 50 000,00
Address
PLOTTERWEG 31
3821 BB AMERSFOORT
Netherlands

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SME

The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.

Yes
Region
West-Nederland Utrecht Utrecht
Activity type
Private for-profit entities (excluding Higher or Secondary Education Establishments)
Links
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 71 429,00
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