Developing Protocols to standardize the development and documentation of energy efficiency projects in the built environment and accelerate their financing.

Project Information

ICPEU

Grant agreement ID: 649836

DOI

10.3030/649836

Project closed

EC signature date 29 January 2015

Start date 1 February 2015

End date 31 January 2018

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Secure, clean and efficient energy

Total cost

€ 1 912 187,50

EU contribution

€ 1 912 187,50

Coordinated by

ENERGYPRO LIMITED
United Kingdom

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - ICPEU (Developing Protocols to standardize the development and documentation of energy efficiency projects in the built environment and accelerate their financing.)

Reporting period: 2016-08-01 to 2018-01-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The importance of increasing investor confidence in energy efficiency as an asset class was stressed in the 2015 EU chartered Energy Efficiency Financial Institutions Group (EEFIG) report which also highlighted the US based Investor Confidence Project as “a relevant model” and recommended “an EU Investor Confidence Project”. This project has delivered a functioning Investor Confidence Project (ICP) within the EU. BPIE estimated EUR937bn investment would be necessary in their Deep Scenario to achieve 78% energy savings and 90% CO2 savings. Despite evidence of the potential attractiveness of investments, the flow of finance into energy efficiency remains much lower than required. Analysis reveals several barriers that hold private capital back but particularly highlight a lack of standardised processes and documentation, analogous to those used in the oil & gas and renewables industries. Scaling up investment in efficiency will require standardisation and greatly increased capacity in the financing market – ICP Europe addresses these issues. The project works with key stakeholders from the finance industry, the energy efficiency industry and building owners, to develop open source Protocols and apply them to real projects. The aim is to get commitment from investors that they will specify the use of the Protocols, and from project developers to use the Protocols, thereby driving both demand and supply. The Protocols are incorporated into a certification scheme, Investor Ready Energy Efficiency™ (IREE™), which can be applied to projects developed using the Protocols by accredited project developers and which has now been launched in the EU. Use of IREE™ reduces due diligence costs and risks for investors, something that has been validated by a leading insurance company.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

From February 2015, the ICP team worked on three main fronts: technical activities, dissemination and deployment activities, and generalization activities.
The technical activities first consisted of writing six Protocols with significant input from the ICP Technical Forum and other stakeholders. In addition to the Protocols, ICPEU has developed a Project Development Specification (PDS), project Templates, and a List of National Resources (Annex A) to refer to.

A second stage of the technical activities consisted of developing the ICP System beyond Protocols and launching the Investor Ready Energy Efficiency™ (IREE™) Certification into Europe. The IREE™ Certification has been introduced to certify projects that have been developed following the ICP system. To qualify as an IREE™ project a project developer must be credentialed by ICP, follow the ICP Protocols in developing, documenting and measuring a project, and have it reviewed by an ICP Quality Assurance (QA) Provider. The QA provider will deliver the IREE™ Certification to a project if it has been developed according to the Protocols. At the end of the ICPEU project in January 2018, 34 projects and programmes in 13 countries are using the Protocols in project development or have been IREE™ Certified. To that purpose, ICP has credentialed 34 Project Developers and 18 Quality Assurance Providers.

ICP has disseminated information about the project, in order to foster the adoption of its tools in the market, and raise the awareness of the ICP and IREE™ Certification amongst the financial industry, the energy efficiency industry and building owners. To do that, the ICP team has organised or presented ICP at 208 events throughout Europe. ICP has also recruited 214 ‘Allies’ in its network, and 184 members in its Technical Forum (from 29 different countries). ICPEU created an Investor Network of 17 members. It is comprised of energy efficiency investors who recognise the benefit of industry best practice and standardised energy renovation project delivery. Members of the Network support the use of the ICP Protocols and credentialing system because these increase confidence in project performance while reducing due diligence-related transaction costs. ICP recommends that project developers, building owners, and others seeking project financing contact members of the listed ICP Investor Network, hence enabling the demand and supply sides of the market to start working together towards a more efficient building energy projects financing ecosystem. Towards that goal, ICP also organized four ‘Investor Days’ to bring together project developers, financial institutions, policy makers and other interested stakeholders to discuss how to increase deal flow in the building efficiency space and pitch funding to interested developers. These events are believed to be the first time in Europe when energy efficiency project developers were directly brought together with investors.

ICP has also pushed for the adoption of the ICP system in countries outside of the initial pilot countries. A particular focus was given on establishing partnerships with organisations in countries where ICP did not have in-country advocates, in order to make dissemination more efficient. At the end of the project, ICP has signed agreements for collaboration (on events, communications, ICP trainings and ICP pilot projects) in Italy, Greece, Spain and Romania. ICPEU has also been approached by several consortia applying for Horizon 2020 funding who wish to incorporate ICP into their projects.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The project has moved the state of the art in the development and documentation of energy efficiency projects in buildings. Prior to ICPEU there was some discussion of the lack of standardisation being a market barrier, but ICPEU has a) significantly raised the awareness and understanding of the importance of this barrier to increasing the flow of capital into building energy efficiency projects and b) developed and begun the roll-out of a credible solution that has been co-created with the relevant stakeholders.
ICPEU has been recognised as a significant market development and supported by many major players including within the financial sector. However, it is premature to measure the impact of ICPEU directly onto the volume of investments made in energy efficiency projects in Europe. Indeed, it is likely to take several years to complete enough projects to measure the impact on the volume of energy efficiency investment, or the reduced transaction costs and risk reduction, but the adoption of ICP by leading stakeholders and its incorporation into other projects such as the Underwriting Toolkit developed by the EEFIG Derisking Project (supported by DG ENER), several H2020 projects and in the ‘Asset Class Energy Efficiency’ project funded by the German Federal Department of Economics and Energy, shows that the potential impact is high. As well as the impact in Europe the project has been presented on and reported globally. ICPEU has sparked interest in hosting linked initiatives in India, China, the Middle East and Australasia. Finally, ICPEU has been backed by the global leader in green build certifications Green Business Certification Inc (GBCI), which is a major win for the project as it will ultimately enable the continuation of ICP’s activities on a commercial basis in North America (United States and Canada) and in Europe.

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