EFIEES, QualitEE’s partner in charge of EU-level communication, brought together EES market stakeholders in two European Discussion Workshops on 22nd March in Brussels. The aim of the events were to gather comments and proposals on the project’s draft guidelines of Technical Quality Criteria and Financial Criteria for energy efficiency services (EES).

The first workshop was a roundtable discussion where participants were evenly distributed around small roundtables. They assessed the QualitEE project’s Draft Quality Criteria, previously presented by Klemens Leutgöb, CEO at e7 Energie Markt Analyse. Three keywords emerged from this discussion:

• Cost-effectiveness – Even in a low energy price context, EES can play a major role thanks to extensive potential energy savings with reduced investment
• Differentiation – EES must remain flexible to be adapted to the client’s situation
• Relevance – EES must be implemented where they are the most suitable option

The second workshop took the form of a panel discussion where financial stakeholders presented their activities related to EES and discussed the QualitEE project’s Financial Guidelines. The panel was composed of:

– Christof Amann, CEO at e7 Energie Markt Analyse – Austria-
– Alex Gilbert, Investment Manager at Amber Infrastructure – United Kingdom
– Arnaud Voisin, Financial Instruments and European Funds at CDC – Caisse des Dépôts – France
– Jamie Goth, Associate Director at the Scottish Futures Trust – United Kingdom
– Quentin Nerincx, Sustainable Energy Advisor at BNP Paribas Fortis – Belgium

Participants qualified the Financial Guidelines as a list of “common sense” checks that were already followed by financial institutions. This suggested that under their current state, the guidelines did not bring much added value to financial processes already in place. The debate led panellists and the audience to develop their points of view, leading to the conclusion that the Financial Guidelines would benefit from being more explicit in order to meet the requirements of both financial institutions and EES providers it is intended for. In addition, it was stated that the lack of projects and their expected low profitability remain key obstacles to the development of EES, especially energy performance contracting.

All the presentations and comments made during the debate will be taken on board, with the purpose of enriching the existing draft guidelines and ensuring they become a powerful tool to further develop EES in Europe.

Presentations from the workshops can be viewed here.