Funding is always a central thought of people with energy efficiency on their minds since it is the main fuel to a company and necessary for its survival.
Thinkers such as this normally have energy projects they want to implement especially local and regional authorities who are committed to energy efficiency after the COP21.
This article describes four possible opportunities to ameliorate your thoughts about funding so you can move on with your projects.
The first opportunity is…
The Investor Confidence Project Europe
This project has announced new underwriting tools to help open a €100 Billion energy renovation market.
It is supported by the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 Program and building owners, project developers, finance and energy service providers, insurers, local authorities, and utilities all stand a chance to benefit from the ICP Europe.
This ICP Europe offers accountability to the energy efficiency market by standardization of projects in order to narrow the current gap of investment by enabling funds to go to building energy renovation.
“It has the potential to transform the market by making building energy retrofits a standardised product for the finance industry,” said Vincent Berrutto, Head of the Energy Unit at the European Commission’s Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises. Who added: “This will contribute to reducing transaction costs and make finance more affordable.”
Others say that the ICP Europe project is the fundamental key in order to unlock the financial stream needed to obtain cost-effective potential energy savings.
ICP Europe has made strategic alliances with the financial, real estate, and efficiency sectors in order to make their projects more original as well as standardize their protocols, thus reducing transaction costs and accelerating the flow of fund for new projects.
Interested parties are invited to contribute to ICP Europe’s efforts through the Technical Forum and help make energy efficiency a global asset class by joining the ICP Europe Ally Network.
Is it your case? Check the following link: http://europe.eeperformance.org/allies.html?ct=t()
The second opportunity is…
CEF Energy
CEF is engineered to address the upgrade of existing and development of new energy transmission infrastructures of European importance in order to handle the investment gap (60-100 billion euro) in the energy sector.
They will do this by bringing in new classes of investors and mitigating certain risks in order to assist the promotion of projects that are necessary to finance their projects.
Further, grants will contribute to the construction costs in order to fill the gaps in the commercial sector of viability relevant to Europe.
€4.7 billion is made available for improving the trans-European energy infrastructure for the period 2014-2020.
Find out more here: http://ec.europa.eu/inea/connecting-europe-facility/cef-energy
The third opportunity is…
Eurostars
Eurostars is an interactive portal that supports international projects led by research and development where they perform for small and medium-sized enterprises.
With the support of the development of rapidly marketable innovative products, processes, and services, Eurostars has crafted a bottom-up approach that assists with improving the daily lives of people worldwide.
Eurostars has additionally developed itself to meet the specific needs of SMEs and is an ideal first step to international cooperation which enables small businesses to combine and share expertise as well as benefit from new ventures beyond national borders.
Eurostars has had 3,548 applications submitted with 783 of those projects funded and an impressive 465 million euros estimated in public funding. The average success rate is about 23%.
Lastly, they have jointed with Eureka as well as the European Commission.
Start your Eurostars project, Contact your national office, Learn about Eurostar’s process, or Apply for funding here: https://www.eurostars-eureka.eu
The fourth and final opportunity is…
KIC InnoEnergy
KIC stands for Knowledge & Innovation Community where innovations are up and coming for 2016 in sustainable energy.
A sustainable energy sector needs new products, new solutions, and new services which need the transforming of ideas in order to make for a successful and marketable product. This is not as easy as it sounds and needs technical expertise, commercial awareness, and access to critical resources.
As they state on their vision claim: “We are looking for businesses with the next big innovation in sustainable energy”
KIC is looking for businesses that think they can help change the future of the energy industry and thus they can address the challenges and shorten the journey from the initial stages to the final outcomes.
KIC strives to invest in the innovation of Europe’s energy industry by assisting businesses financially to help develop products, services, and solutions with a supposed high potential of attraction.
They provide a plethora of skills to complement these products and moreover connect them to markets and commercial opportunities across Europe.
For example:
- 160 European project partners for the development of new products
- Investment funding for product innovation
- Market needs and potential customer identification
- 5-year expectancy for prototypes to become commercial products
You can register your project in the following link if you are interested in this option: https://cip.kic-innoenergy.com
Overall, these 4 opportunities are great alternatives to giving up on project due to lack of budget. These funding sources should assist your business to get your energy projects from the lab to the launch.
If you are a business who has projects that think they would fall under one of these funding options, apply today to get energy-efficient results. But, we have to share with you some words of advice: applying for these funds is never easy.
There are many companies in the competition and processes are long. You will probably need an expert or a team-leading internally the application, like an R&D department. And be ready to prepare documentation to support your proposal!
Do you want to know if your company is in the best shape to apply for energy efficiency funding? DEXMA is here to help! We have a webinar recording about innovation in the energy business. In the session, we will cover:
- How is it like to apply for international energy efficiency funding, with lessons learnt from the Midnattssol experience
- Why you should partner with other companies to increase the success rate in your application, with COMSA, a leading international organization expert in tenders and energy efficiency funding calls
- And, finally, what results to expect from your applications. Here we will introduce a new app, called SolarView, that was built thanks to the Midnattssol project, and is aimed to help to manage photovoltaic facilities.
