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.
