Scroll Top

Pilot Details
Pilot Name Ēkubirojs
Client Type Non-governmental organisation
Country Latvia
Solution Type Facilitation services

Ēku saglabāšanas un energotaupības birojs, or Ēkubirojs in short, is a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that acts as a One-Stop-Shop by providing a virtual location where residents, housing associations, and building managers can find all the information they need to begin their deep Energy Efficiency prioritised (dEEp) building renovation journey. Ēkubirojs has been actively working with the residential sector since 2012, and now provides multifamily building residents with evaluation for the best renovation options, suggests the most accessible financial plan, and

handles project paperwork. To carry out the aforementioned activities, Ēkubirojs is designated as the authorised entity for a specific building renovation project by the multifamily building’s housing association.

Breakdown

During this pilot process, Ēkubirojs was selected as an authorised entity for the building renovation process. During this process, Ēkubirojs advised residents on their options in terms of the organisation of renovation. To residents, an EPC model was introduced by the NGO as one of the options and seeing owner interest in such model, the organisation also looked for ESCO that would take on the project. With very few ESCOs in the market there were very few options to satisfy the demand and only two options the entity could consider– one was a company that was doing renovations without EPC, and the other was one of the few active ESCOs in Latvia. Although the owners were eager for this renovation, neither of the ESCOs saw a business case for this project; therefore, renovation with an EPC was not concluded.

The ESCO market in Latvia is underdeveloped, as there are very few ESCOs and even fewer active ones. This leads to a situation in which, although there might be demand for EPC model type of financing for deep building renovation projects, the demand might not be met. At this moment, also building owners are often not aware of their options regarding financing renovation projects. Due to issues both at the demand and supply side, the ESCO market might not expand unless there is a push for it from the government and appropriate support tool, that compliment such business models.

In underdeveloped markets its of critical importance to include under facilitation services a service in which building owners are introduced and educated on EPC type financing models to ensure that there is demand as building owners would understand the benefits of such contracts.

For more information, please contact:

Funding for Future B.V.