National roundtables to implement the Smart Finance for Smart Buildings initiative

Proposals should set up national roundtables focused on energy efficiency investment, as permanent multilateral discussion forums gathering the relevant stakeholders, including but not limited to government, local and regional authorities, financial sector, ESCOs, homeowners, industry sector, construction sector and SME sector. The focus of the roundtables should include existing private and public buildings, industry and SME’s; it could also include the renovation of street lighting, district heating and transport infrastructures. Integrated renewable energy sources can be part of the focus when combined with energy efficiency measures.

The roundtables should (among others) analyse the possibility to upscale existing best practices from the national and European level, develop strategies, roadmaps and action plans, propose improvements in the national policy frameworks and measures, and follow their implementation, develop jointly template documents and contracts leading to a better functioning of the market. The roundtables should act as a forum where all stakeholders can learn from successful market initiatives, and can provide input into the policy making process.

Proposals should build on the activities of the Sustainable Energy Investment Forums initiative[[https://ec.europa.eu/energy/en/financing-energy-efficiency/sustainable-energy-investment-forums]]. Proposals involving only one country are eligible; however, they should include a small share of activities to exchange with similar roundtables across Europe; those exchanges will be coordinated by the Commission services.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of between EUR 0.5 million and EUR 1.5 million would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

Access to private finance for energy efficiency and integrated renewables remains challenging. One obstacle is the lack of common understanding of the topic between government, public sector, private sector, and the financial sector. The Smart Finance for Smart Buildings initiative[[COM(2016) 860 final ANNEX 1 - ANNEX Accelerating clean energy in buildings]] has proposed a comprehensive approach based on the more effective use of public funds, aggregation and project development assistance, and de-risking. However, this approach still needs to be rolled out and shared with all stakeholders at the national level. The Commission is piloting this through the Sustainable Energy Investment Forums initiative since 2016.

Proposals are expected to demonstrate, depending on the scope addressed, the impacts listed below, using quantified indicators and targets wherever possible:

• Establishment of national energy efficiency investment roundtables;
• Number of national / regional policy documents resulting from the roundtables;
• Number of key stakeholders involved in the roundtables, in particular from the financial sector;
• Investments in sustainable energy triggered by the project (in million Euro);
• Primary energy savings triggered by the project (in GWh/year).

Additional positive effects can be quantified and reported when relevant and wherever possible:

• Reduction of the greenhouse gases emissions (in tCO2-eq/year) and/or air pollutants (in kg/year) triggered by the project.